Lee Discusses Future Research for Metastatic RCC

In an interview with CancerNetwork® during the 2022 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium,Chung-Han Lee, MD, PhD, assistant attending physician for the Genitourinary Oncology service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, discussed where research should be focused and what the future may hold for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Lee served as investigator of an exploratory analysis of the KEYNOTE-146 study (NCT02501096) examining biomarkers of response for lenvatinib (Lenvima) plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with metastatic RCC. Results of that analysis revealed responses across biomarker subgroups, leading investigators to continue searching for ways of determining which patients benefit most from the regimen.

Transcript:

Right now, for patients who are previously treated, there’s a huge clinical need. For us to answer [necessary research] questions, we have to design some of our biomarker studies specifically for the purpose of answering a specific clinical question. Based off these results and others, what we have seen is that using very old historic treatment naïve tissue that doesn’t seem to reflect the current clinical context well —especially in this treatment refractory or previously treated salvage type of setting—what we need to do is understand that this still represents a huge need for patients. Most people still, unfortunately, require further systemic therapy despite the fact that most of our biomarker efforts have been focused in the frontline space. The second line and previously treated space remains essentially wide open.