Kidney Cancer Research Summit

Tian Zhang, MD, discusses unanswered questions regarding molecular drivers of kidney cancer that the OPTIC RCC trial aims to answer, next steps with this research, and the potential benefits of receiving systemic therapy prior to undergoing cytoreductive nephrectomy for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Raquibul Hannan, MD, PhD, discusses the benefits of using stereotactic radiation in patients with localized RCC who are unfit for surgery, research findings indicating improved outcomes in patients who received radiation for metastatic disease, and how this radiation technique may work in concert with systemic therapy.

Patients with synchronous metastatic renal cell carcinoma who received first-line immunotherapy had worse survival outcomes compared with those with metachronous metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

The investigation of treatment regimens featuring antibody-drug conjugates or radiotherapeutics are part of the ongoing wave of research in renal cell carcinoma.

The combination of lenvatinib and pembrolizumab continued to show clinical activity in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, including in subsets of patients who had received or were naïve to checkpoint inhibitors.

Higher levels of baseline TCR clonality in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and baseline IgG1 fraction in PBMCs and tumor tissue were identified in an institutional cohort of samples from patient with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Olaparib monotherapy elicited responses with favorable tolerability in patients with renal cell carcinoma whose tumors harbored BAP1 or other DNA repair gene mutations, according to data from the interim analysis of the phase 2 ORCHID trial presented during the 2023 Kidney Cancer Research Summit.

Although the use of immunotherapy treatment approaches continues to become more prevalent in advanced renal cell carcinoma, high-level evidence showing benefit of sequential administration of these agents are limited.

Determining the appropriate front-line treatment pathway for patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma may not always align with risk stratification features.

Chung-Han Lee, MD, PhD, discusses the final results of the phase 2 cohort of a phase 1/2 trial evaluating lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab in patients with pretreated metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

Yasser Mohamed Ali Ged, MBBS, discusses the phase 2 ORCHID trial (NCT03786796).

Toni K. Choueiri, MD, discusses ongoing trials in advanced renal cell carcinoma.

David F. McDermott, MD, discusses the randomized phase 2 LITESPARK-024 trial (NCT05468697).

Neoadjuvant immunotherapy–based combinations led to reductions in tumor size and pathologic necrosis at the time of cytoreductive nephrectomy in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Adjuvant pembrolizumab prolonged disease-free survival and distant metastasis-free survival compared with placebo across The University of California Los Angeles Integrated Staging System–categorized subgroups of patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

Lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab demonstrated improved overall response rates compared with sunitinib monotherapy in treatment-naïve patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma regardless of risk status or PD-L1 expression.

The tumor-immune evasion cell networks in clear cell renal cell carcinoma may be captured and classified using imaging mass cytometry, an orthogonal approach with the potential for increased cost-efffectiveness and accuracy compared with single-cell RNA sequencing.