Research into Kidney Cancer

There are currently many lines of research to improve prognosis and quality of life for patients affected by kidney cancer. The different areas of research are described below. 

• Adjuvant treatment: Adjuvant or complementary treatment is that which is administered after curative treatment, usually surgery, to prevent relapse of the disease. In other tumours, chemotherapy after surgery helps reduce the risk of recurrence of the disease. However, for kidney cancer, there is currently no treatment that has been shown to decrease relapse after surgery. This is why clinical trials are ongoing to see if new drugs or combinations of them improve the cure options for this disease. 

• Treatment of disseminated disease:  Although there are several drugs that help control the disease, this is usually temporary and the disease is not cured. So this is an important area for improvement. New drugs that have a different mechanism of action than usual are currently being studied. These include combinations of drugs, such as immunotherapy combined with antiangiogenic agents, to enhance their effects. 

• Biomarkers: Patients’ responses to medication are not always the same: in around 25% of cases, a very significant improvement of the disease is achieved; while in another 50% of cases, the disease remains stable with the remaining 25% of cases not responding to treatment and finding their disease worsens immediately.  

It is not currently known why one patient's tumour responds very well to treatment, while another apparently similar case does not respond to treatment. This is why it is important to develop tools such as biomarkers, which analyse a tumour to show whether it is sensitive or resistant to treatment. This makes it possible to offer personalised treatment to patients and avoid adverse effects from treatments that are not useful for them.