Dr. McGregor on Unmet Needs in Non-Clear Cell RCC

Bradley McGregor, MD, clinical director, Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology, senior physician, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and instructor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses the challenges of developing treatment strategies for patients with non-cell clear renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Patients with non-clear cell RCC have a worse prognosis compared withthose who have clear cell RCC, says McGregor.

There are several subtypes of non-clear cell RCC; however, basket trials often include all non-clear cell RCC. Although this is an effective way to include these patients in clinical trials, the disease biology of non-clear cell RCC differs substantially from subtype to subtype, says McGregor.

Therefore, investigators have launched an ongoing randomized phase II trial (NCT02761057) to evaluate the efficacy of MET kinase inhibitors specifically in patients with metastatic papillary RCC. Papillary RCC is driven by MET, and investigators believe that targeting MET could yield significant benefit.