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Report from ASCO 2007
This year's ASCO conference produced no reports of any blockbuster drugs for kidney cancer. Of the 50+ oral sessions and poster presentations, half of them were devoted to results of sunitinib (Sutent) and/or sorafenib (Nexavar) treatment. Aside from testing new, targeted therapies, oncologists are combining therapies, each of which inhibit different classes of growth factors, in an attempt to achieve a synergistic response. Sequential use of different agents was also examined. In addition, oncologists are talking about tailoring treatment to the individual both by varying the dosage (based on the absorption rate for that person) and by testing the patient for markers that would indicate individual responsiveness to particular therapies. It will be interesting to see the results of these activities next year. Given the expanded number of trials, oncologists seemed to have discovered that there are cancer types other than clear cell, and we have seen more reportage on the results for papillary and chromophobe patients than in previous years.
There has been growing interest in kidney cancer at ASCO, and an exponential increase in ASCO session attendance in the last few years. This should be very beneficial to us and hopefully will translate into increased clinical research opportunities. There are now four drugs that are FDA approved for kidney cancer: Nexavar (2005), Sutent (2006), Torisel (2007), and Interleukin-2 (1992). There are also a couple of targeted agent drugs in the pipeline that will likely be approved in 2008. It remains to be seen if the availability of therapies will have an impact on the number of patients who enter clinical trials, where new drugs are developed. Currently only 3% of kidney cancer patients enter clinical trials.
Following are summary reports of selected oral and poster sessions.