Dr. Vaishampayan on Immunotherapy Trials in Kidney Cancer

Ulka Vaishampayan, MD, professor of oncology at Wayne State University, and the chief of the Solid Tumor Program at Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, discusses trials that examine frontline immunotherapy for metastatic kidney cancer.

The CheckMate-214, KEYNOTE-426, and JAVELIN Renal 101 trials explore immunotherapy as a first-line treatment, explains Vaishampayan.

The KEYNOTE-426 and JAVELIN Renal 101 trials examine axitinib (Inlyta) combined with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and avelumab (Bavencio), respectively, says Vaishampayan. The KEYNOTE-426 trial led to the FDA approval of axitinib plus pembrolizumab for the frontline treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and JAVELIN Renal 101 was the basis for the avelumab/axitinib approval as well. Data from the KEYNOTE-426 trial showed that pembrolizumab/axitinib led to a 47% reduction in the risk of death versus sunitinib (HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.38-0.74; P <.0001). Meanwhile, the avelumab/axitinib combination led to a 31% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared with sunitinib (Sutent) in an intent-to-treat population of patients with treatment-naïve advanced RCC, regardless of PD-L1 expression.

The CheckMate-214 trial evaluated the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) combined with low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy), concludes Vaishampayan, which is now available for intermediate- or poor-risk patients with advanced RCC.