A combination therapy with a new targeted therapy (tyrosine kinase inhibitor, TKI) called sitravatinib and nivolumab, an immunotherapy, showed promise in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC) whose cancer had progressed after previous treatment. Results were presented and discussed at the 2022 European International Kidney Cancer Symposium (EIKCS) in Antwerp, Belgium at the weekend.

In this phase 1/2 trial published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, 35.7% of people responded to the treatment and the average time to when the treatment stopped working and the cancer started growing again (progression-free survival) was 11.7 months. The treatment was also well tolerated, with no unexpected side effects.

There were 42 patients in the study with clear cell RCC that did not respond to previous cancer medicines. Overall, 80.1% of these patients were alive after being followed for an average of about 19 month.

Additional phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials are now looking at the combination of sitravatinib with nivolumab to collect more safety and outcome data.

Read more in Urology Times here