Promising Therapy for Patients with Advanced Kidney Cancer

the Cancer Therapy Advisor take:

Patients with advanced papillary renal cell carcinoma and patients with hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer, a very aggressive form of papillary renal cell carcinoma, currently have a poor prognosis and there is no standard treatment regimen for their disease.

Research led by Ramaprasad Srinivasan, MD, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD, indicates that the combination of erlotinib and bevacizumab produced an significant increase in rate of treatment response and was associated with manageable side-effects in this group of patients.

The researchers recruited 41 patients in their phase II clinical trial and intravenously administered 10 mg of bevacizumab for each kg of the patient’s weight combined with a 150 mg daily dose of oral erlotinib. The treatment was continued until disease progression or intolerable side effects occurred. In the first group, 20 patients had been diagnosed with advanced hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer and 21 patients in the second group had advanced sporadic non-hereditary papillary renal cell carcinoma.

Out of both groups, 19 of the patients enrolled in the trial had received at least one previous systemic therapy (eg, sunitinib) that led to disease progression. Almost all patients enrolled in the clinical trial with hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer saw a decrease in their tumor size or remained stable without progression. 

The overall response rate was 65% and many of the response were long lasting, with some patients remaining on the study for 3 years or more. This treatment regimen shows significant promise for patients with advanced kidney cancer, particularly patients with hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer.