Two drugs have been found to work better than the standard treatment for advanced kidney cancer.
Experts presented the results in European Cancer Congress currently held at Vienna, Austria, which started on Sep 25. The results are also published in New England Journal of Medicine on the same day.
The two drugs are called nivolumab and cabozatinib, and both are compared to everolimus, a signal transduction inhibitor that prevents cancer cells from growing and dividing so they can continue to metastasize. Aside from kidney cancer, the drug is also used to treat post-menopausal advanced breast cancer and pancreatic cancer that has already undergone metastasis or can no longer be operated on.
The first study, Checkmate 025, matches nivolumab, an immunotherapy drug and is currently used in lung and skin cancer, with evorilumus. It was participated by more than 800 patients. Although both drugs were able to extend the survival of patients, nivolumab did better at 25 months than the 19.6 months of evorilumus. Researchers stopped the trial before its actual schedule since the efficacy in terms of trial has been significant and to give the comparison group the immunotherapy drug.
The second study, meanwhile, was called Meteor, and it compared evorilumus with cabozantinib, a targeted drug therapy that is designed to slow the growth of the tumors. The researchers learned it is effective in delaying the progression of the tumor growth. The survival period also doubled by around 7 months.
Also referred to as renal cancer, kidney cancer affects at least 60,000 men and women each year, according to American Cancer Society. At least 14,000 of them are going to die from the disease. The survival rate depends on whether the patient is considered low risk or high risk, as well as the stage at which the cancer is diagnosed. Advanced kidney patients have a survival rate between 41% and 8%.