Background: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common type of renal malignancy with 87% frequency. As a global health problem, kidney cancer is responsible for 2. 2% of new cancer cases. One of the highly effective mechanisms that renal cancer cells avoid in the immune system is PD-1 and PD-L1 interaction. Scope: Literature search is made from PubMed, Medline, and ASCO and ESMO Annual Meeting abstracts using the following search keywords: "nivolumab," "pembrolizumab," "atezolizumab," "avelumab," "durvalumab," and "renal cell cancer." The last search was on Nov 1, 2019. Findings: The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab have better survival results than sunitinib for intermediate and poor risk patients but not for favorable risk groups. In 2019, two combination regimens with pembrolizumab plus axitinib and avelumab plus axitinib demonstrated efficacy over sunitinib for every risk group. The overall survival data of these trials are still immature. Conclusion: Advanced RCC has high morbidity and mortality with an increasing prevalence. Following tyrosine kinase inhibitors, checkpoint inhibitors have a great influence on treatment of advanced RCC, especially the combination of these two strategies. In 2019 these combined strategies demonstrated 5% complete remission with up to 60% objective response rate. While not immediately, but perhaps in the near future, advanced RCC will become a manageable chronic disease, even if a cure is not possible.
Current medical research and opinion. 2020 Jan 16 [Epub ahead of print]
Mutlu Hizal, Mehmet An Sendur, Burak Bilgin, Muhammed Bulent Akinci, Didem Sener Dede, Bulent Yalcin
Department of Medical Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara, Turkey.