Results from a phase III trial presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2017 Annual Meeting held in Chicago last week confirmed the prognostic value of a 16-gene recurrence score (RS) in patients with high-risk renal cell carcinoma (RCC) undergoing adjuvant sunitinib therapy. Though the score cannot yet be used to select patients for adjuvant therapy, it could be used to identify those who will derive the greatest benefit.

RCC risk assessment is currently done using the UCLA Integrated Staging System and the Mayo Clinic System (known as the Leibovich Score); however, these scoring systems do not adequately predict the risk of recurrence of the cancer. The current study was conducted by Dr Bernard J. Escudier of Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus in Paris, France. He said, “The addition of a prognostic gene expression signature may facilitate the identification of patients with high risk of recurrence.”

The study included a total of 193 patients with high-risk, stage III RCC, who were included in the S-TRAC study; 90 patients were treated with placebo, and 103 were treated with sunitinib.

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