Renal Cell Carcinoma

Lung Cancer

Newer combination regimens are about to make their way into the treatment paradigm in RCC, with promising data fueling excitement for these approaching regimens. Each of the combinations approaching addition to the treatment paradigm for patients with RCC incorporates immunotherapy, demonstrating the growing role of this modality.

Lenvatinib mesylate, an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor, will continue to be developed and commercialized worldwide by its creator, Japan’s Eisai Co. Ltd, in a strategic collaboration with Merck, which is better known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada. The partnership between the 2 companies was announced on March 7.

Lung Cancer

Based on data&nbsp;from the phase III S-TRAC trial,<span style="font-size:10.8333px"> </span>the&nbsp;European Medicines Agency&rsquo;s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use recently recommended against approving&nbsp;sunitinib for use as an adjuvant therapy in patients with renal cell carcinoma who have received nephrectomy and are high risk for recurrence.

The FDA has approved a 4-week dosing schedule for the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) across several indications.

Robert A. Figlin, MD, Steven Spielberg Family Chair in Hematology-Oncology, professor of medicine, and director, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, recently discussed the cases of 2 patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

According to findings from the phase III REFLECT trial now published online in the <em>Lancet,</em>^&nbsp;lenvatinib improved progression-free survival and was noninferior for overall survival compared with sorafenib for the frontline treatment of patients with&nbsp;unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

Tian Zhang, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Duke Cancer Institute, discusses the phase III KEYNOTE-564 trial of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as adjuvant treatment for renal cell carcinoma (RCC).&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp;

The first-in-class glutaminase inhibitor CB-839 showed encouraging activity and tolerability when combined with everolimus and cabozantinib in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, according to results from a phase I study presented in a poster session at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, California.

According to results of the randomized phase II CABOSUN trial,<span style="font-size:10.8333px"> </span>PFS was improved with sunitinib as initial systemic therapy across subgroups of patients with intermediate- and poor-risk advanced renal cell carcinoma.&nbsp;The advantage to cabozantinib on PFS was particularly strong in patients who were MET-positive.

As stated in findings from IMmotion151, a phase III open-label study, the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and bevacizumab (Avastin) induced a 26% reduction in the risk of progression or death compared with sunitinib (Sutent) for patients with untreated PD-L1&ndash;positive metastatic renal cell carcinoma. This study was released ahead of the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Treatment with cabozantinib induced similar quality of life results as treatment with everolimus in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, according to results of the&nbsp;randomized, open-label, international phase III METEOR trial.

Rana R. McKay, MD, medical oncologist, assistant professor, Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, discusses advances in the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

David F. McDermott, MD,&nbsp;shares some of the successes with immunotherapy in RCC and gave his insight on the future treatment of these patients.