Clinical Pearls for Treating Advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma

Transcript:

Benjamin Garmezy, MD: To conclude here, Dr Barata, I'm here as a researcher embedded in a community practice. Do you have any additional clinical pearls to share with your community colleagues when you treat patients with advanced RCC [renal cell carcinoma]? Anything that we haven't discussed today?

Pedro Barata, MD, MSc: We touched base on very important points that are important tips for folks who aren’t seeing kidney cancer as often. Because it's not a common cancer, it's OK to get 2 or 3 cases a year. And it gets trickier because many of these treatments are not used in other cancer types, especially the TKIs. Certainly, they aren’t the most common type of therapies that we use. We highlighted the importance of knowing the RCC subtype. It's important to know whether you have clear cell vs non-clear cell, if you have sarcomatoid features with the potential as a predictive biomarker, and to understand that most of our patients in our clinics should be getting an IO [immuno-oncology]–based approach, a combination of therapies. Because we're doing that and we're improving their outcomes, which is another important message. As we see where we are today as we go through the data, there are more data, not just in the frontline setting but also in the refractory setting. Tivozanib is a good example of that.

To wrap it up, also getting a little sense about what kinds of questions are being addressed as we speak, such as the role of immunotherapy in the salvage setting, gives us a good idea about where is the field we’re moving as we develop novel strategies for our patients with advanced kidney cancer. I would argue that having conversations like this [is important]. I learn a ton. I'm hoping that folks out there can get this conversation and can recognize points that are important in their practice and perhaps keep that conversation going.

Benjamin Garmezy, MD: Great. Thank you, Dr Barata. What an interesting conversation. And thank you to our viewing audience. We hope you found this program informative and valuable for your clinical practice. Feel free to look either of us up if you have any clinical questions. We are always happy to field questions from our community colleagues who have patients with RCC in their practice.

Pedro Barata, MD, MSc: Thank you, Dr Garmezy, and thank you all.

Transcript edited for clarity.