A recent study in America has shown that cytoreductive nephrectomy followed by targeted therapy in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) improves survival versus patients treated only with targeted therapies. The study will be published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on 1 July 2016.

The study looked at the use of cytoreductive nephrectomy in combination with targeted therapies in patients included in the American National Cancer Data Base (NCDB). A total of 15,390 patients were treated with targeted therapies between 2006 and 2013; of those, 5,374 (35%) also underwent cytoreductive nephrectomy. Overall, the mean time to death among those who underwent cytoreductuve nephrectomy was 32.5 months, compared with 14.9 months for those who did not.

However, although the study is the largest sample size to show an overall survival benefit in patients treated with targeted therapies, the authors warn that “……..careful patient selection remains critical in determining if patients will benefit from cytoreductive nephrectomy.”

Read more here and see the full paper here.