Drugs for Kidney Cancer

Every year, there are approximately 190,000 new diagnoses of renal cancer, resulting in 93,000 deaths worldwide. In US, there are about 30,000 kidney cancer cases annually. High proportions of patients develop metastases. Treatment of choice for localized renal cancer is surgery: most often nephrectomy, adrenalectomy, or regional lymph node dissection. Surgery is generally not curative for patients with advanced disease. Single agent or combination chemotherapy is usually ineffective, with responses of around 5%. In the US, biologic therapy using high dose interleukin (IL-2) is the therapy approved to treat metastatic renal cancer. Response rate is not good and toxicity was substantial. Recently, several drugs, including Nexavar, Sutent, and Torisel,  are approved for treatment of kidney cancers.

Table.  Drugs for Kidney Cancer