ASCO GU 2024 – New insights in clear cell renal cancer (RCC) – Adjuvant perspectives

By Marcos Franca

During the morning in ASCO GU 2024 meeting, in San Francisco – USA, the session was dedicated to analyzing two trials addressing the role of adjuvant immunotherapy in patients with renal cancer at high risk of relapse. Prof Robert Motzer, from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, presented the results of the phase 3 study Checkmate 914, that compares adjuvant nivolumab versus placebo in patients with RCC at a high risk of relapse.

In the same direction, Prof Toni Choueiri, from Harvard Medical School, presented the overall survival results of adjuvant pembrolizumab or placebo in patients with renal cancer at a high risk of relapse. This study had already been presented during the plenary session in ASCO Annual Meeting in 2021. That time, it was shown a disease-free survival (DFS) benefit, favoring pembrolizumab. Now, the overall survival of this study was presented.

Nivolumab did not meet the study criteria to show benefit in DFS and, because of that, no overall survival (OS) analysis was conducted.

On the other hand, pembrolizumab is the first agent to show a remarkable benefit both on DFS and OS. The risk of death was reduced by 38%. Hence, in patients with clear cell carcinoma submitted to surgical approach and at a high risk of relapse, pembrolizumab, which was a drug to be considered in this scenario, is the new standard of care.

Marcos Franca is a clinical oncologist at Oncoclinicas in Brasilia, Brazil .