In the past decade, several agents targeting angiogenesis and signal transduction pathways have replaced the use of cytokines as standard of care treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after showing improved clinical benefit and survival. Currently, several novel immunotherapy agents targeting the programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein-4 (CTLA-4) pathways are being tested in metastatic RCC and are bound to revolutionise the management of this disease. However, the success of both antiangiogenic drugs and new immunotherapy agents still depends on our ability to select patients most likely to respond to treatment. This article will review the current available evidence on prognostic and predictive biomarkers of response to signal transduction pathways-targeted agents and modern immunotherapy in metastatic RCC.
ESMO open. 2016 May 25*** epublish ***
Alejo Rodriguez-Vida, Michiel Strijbos, Thomas Hutson
Department of Medical Oncology , IMIM Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute , Barcelona , Spain., Department of Medical Oncology , AZ Klina , Brasschaat, Antwerp , Belgium., Texas Oncology-Baylor Charles A Sammons Cancer Center , Dallas, Texas , USA.