Dr. Choueiri on the Role of Traditional Agents in Kidney Cancer

Toni Choueiri, MD, clinical director, Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology, director, Kidney Cancer Center, senior physician, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the role of traditional agents in the treatment of patients with kidney cancer.

With the recent approvals of cabozantinib (Cabometyx) and nivolumab (Opdivo), the treatment landscape of kidney cancer continues to grow. Traditional agents such as everolimus (Afinitor), sunitinib (Sutent), and axitinib (Inlyta), still have a place in the treatment of patients with this disease though, says Choueiri.

Sunitinib remains one of the first-line standard therapies, and is regularly used in the control arm of clinical trials. Everolimus may be pushed out of second-line to later lines of treatment, says Choueiri, but there are still patients with specific alterations who could benefit from the agent. Additionally, axitinib is moving to the frontline setting in some clinical trials as it is very well tolerated and has a short half-life.