Dr. Motzer on the Importance of Assessing Health-Related QOL in RCC

Robert J. Motzer, MD, Kidney Cancer section head, genitourinary oncology service and Jack and Dorothy Byrne chair in Clinical Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the importance of assessing health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

HRQOL assessments provide insight into how patients perceive the regimen’s tolerability and how they feel about being on the regimen overall, Motzer explains. HRQOL assessments yield important information for data interpretation and treatment decisions, Motzer adds.

During the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, findings from a HRQOL analysis from the phase 3 CLEAR trial (NCT02811861) were presented. The results demonstrated that patients with advanced RCC treated with the combination of lenvatinib (Lenvima) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) had similar or better symptoms and HRQOL compared with patients treated with sunitinib (Sutent). Historically, sunitinib was a standard of care option for patients with advanced RCC, so these findings confirmed that the improved efficacy demonstrated with first-line lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab vs sunitinib in the CLEAR trial does not comprise tolerability, Motzer concludes.