Kidney Cancer Therapy Advances with Promising Drug Duo

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, have reported promising final clinical data from a Phase III trial with a five-year follow-up, comparing a two-drug combination to a single drug for patients with advanced clear renal cell carcinoma, the most common form of kidney cancer.

The Phase III trial, called KEYNOTE-426, compared pembrolizumab plus axitinib with sunitinib. Pembrolizumab, marketed as Keytruda, is a cancer immunotherapy composed of a monoclonal antibody that blocks PD-1, thereby enabling the body’s immune cells, specifically T cells, to recognize and attack cancer cells.

Axitinib and sunitinib are both kinase inhibitors that prevent tumors from forming blood vessels in a process called angiogenesis, which they require to develop and spre