A recent retrospective study looked at the data from 49 patients with metastatic papillary renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who were taking targeted therapy (VEGF-TKIs). The study showed that patients on targeted therapy and with bone metastases from papillary RCC have worse progression-free survival and overall survival than patients without bone metastasis.

Patients with papillary RCC and bone metastases had poorer outcomes compared with patients without bone metastases: median progression-free survival was 4 months versus 7 months and median overall survival was 7.5 versus 19 months, respectively.

The literature suggests that patients with clear cell RCC and bone metastases have aggressive disease and an unfavourable prognosis when treated with VEGFR-TKIs: this study showed a similar relationship for patients with papillary RCC and bone metastases. Also, the researchers did not see any significant difference in outcome on VEGFR-TKIs between type 1 and type 2 papillary RCC.

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