In this study, real world data is used to compare the effectiveness of immunotherapy and targeted therapy (both alone and in combination) in people with metastatic clear cell or papillary renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

A total of 6,920 patients with a diagnosis of metastatic RCC were identified: 594 (8.6%) had papillary RCC and 6,326 (91.4%) had clear cell RCC. In patients with metastatic papillary RCC, neither immunotherapy nor targeted therapy plus immunotherapy resulted in better overall survival time compared to targeted therapy alone. This contrasted with people with metastatic clear cell RCC, where combination immunotherapy plus targeted therapy and immunotherapy alone resulted in better overall survival time than targeted therapy alone.

Surgery resulted in better overall survival time in both papillary and clear cell RCC patients.

In conclusion, although immunotherapy and immunotherapy combinations with targeted therapy resulted in better overall survival in patients with metastatic clear cell RCC, this same effect was not seen in patients with papillary RCC.

Read more in UroToday here