Dr. Gupta Discusses Combination Immunotherapy in RCC

Shilpa Gupta, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Hematology/Oncology and Transplantation Division, University of Minnesota, discusses combination immunotherapy in renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Findings from a phase Ib/II trial of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and bevacizumab (Avastin) demonstrated the safety and tolerability of the combination in patients with metastatic RCC. The overall response rate was 60.9%, with 28 partial responses among 46 evaluable patients. Next steps are being taken to create a larger study to then compare to other ongoing studies of combination therapy in patients with RCC.

As for triplet therapy, Gupta says that preliminary safety data are needed because available data in other tumor types have shown good efficacy, but not safety. For example, the efficacy of ipilimumab (Yervoy) and nivolumab (Opdivo) is high, but toxicity levels were not minimal, so adding another agent may compound the issue, Gupta says. Phase I trials will need to be conducted to fully understand the impact of a triplet immunotherapy regimen.