Advanced Kidney Cancer: From the Editor

21 February 2024

Advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) accounts for about 2% of cancer deaths globally, and its incidence is increasing in the United States and worldwide.¹ Clear cell RCC (ccRCC) comprises about 75% of RCCs and is the most aggressive subtype, although survival rates are substantially improving with the advent of targeted systemic therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors. In this editorial, I update readers on current therapeutic approaches for patients with advanced RCC, including clear cell and other histotypes. I also review the role of (neo)adjuvant treatment and biomarkers in advanced RCC management.

22 June 2022

Welcome to UroToday’s new Advanced Kidney Cancer Center of Excellence. It is my great honor and pleasure to serve as its editor. Therapies for advanced kidney cancer are rapidly evolving, which can make it challenging to stay current with new developments. This website curates clinically relevant content in a variety of formats, including peer-to-peer video conversations between experts, articles and commentaries by physician-scientists, in-depth conference coverage, and newly released abstracts.

We aim to foster a deeper understanding of current standards of care, points of transition and possible controversy, and future treatment directions in advanced kidney cancer. Your engagement and feedback through this website, its associated newsletters, and social media are welcome and encouraged. In this first letter, I highlight some of the most important recent developments in kidney cancer and note some key study results to watch for. I will first discuss clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), as this is the predominant histology we see in our patients. I will then cover non-clear cell RCC, touch on molecular research, and leave you with a few key takeaways.

29 July 2019

I still remember the debates around treating sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma (RCC) a decade ago when I started in practice. There were not many studies to cite – one that often came up was Naomi Haas’s trial of doxorubicin with gemcitabine (ECOG 8802). The study showed progression-free survival (PFS) of 3.5 months and overall survival (OS) of 8.8 months – sobering results, but at least an option we could pursue in the clinic. I only treated a handful of patients with this regimen, but it was certainly no walk in the park – massive fatigue, cytopenias and a range of other toxicities.

02 April 2019

In February, we all waited with bated breath for the results of KEYNOTE-426 and updated results of JAVELIN-101, examining axitinib/pembrolizumab and axitinib/avelumab, respectively.^1,2 In the coming months, we will juxtapose these datasets, and compare and contrast with what we know about nivolumab/ipilimumab from CheckMate-214 and cabozantinib from CABOSUN.^3,4 These four trials have collectively changed the landscape of what used to be a simple algorithm for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).

04 March 2019

San Francisco has been hopping since the start of the new year, with multiple meetings causing tidal waves of change in oncology. The J.P. Morgan meeting was the first of these, showcasing multiple mergers and acquisitions in biotech and hinting towards major development efforts in CAR-T and BiTE technologies. ASCO GU came next, with stunning data for combinations of immune and targeted therapy in challenging diseases such as esophageal and gastric cancer.

13 December 2018

The 2018 Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO) Meeting was second to none – an outstanding array of speakers and sessions that addressed virtually every salient point pertaining to renal cell carcinoma (RCC) treatment.  As you can imagine, cytoreductive nephrectomy was a hot topic for discussion – SUO 2018 marked the first large US

01 November 2018

I’m back now from a short stay in Munich for ESMO 2018 – didn’t get much beer or bratwurst, but I did soak in as much of the meeting as I could. The conference spanned a full five days – a little too much for my clinical schedule to handle – but I did get my hands on the bulk of the important renal cell carcinoma (RCC) data from the meeting.  I’ve boiled it down to three brief bullet points:

09 October 2018

When I finished training and joined the faculty at City of Hope a decade ago, there was a great deal of excitement over recent approvals of sunitinib and sorafenib for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).  Throughout my training, I had seen many patients succumb to toxicities from interleukin-2 – despite the handful of victories, there were overwhelming losses. 

31 August 2018

Welcome to the Advanced Kidney Cancer Center of Excellence on UroToday.com.  My name is Monty Pal, and I am a medical oncologist with just over a decade of experience in a research-based practice primarily focused on RCC and other genitourinary cancers.  I recall that when I began, our treatment options were limited.