Scientists from Northwestern University found that patients with advanced kidney cancer who received a new combination treatment had a similar or better quality of life compared to patients with standard therapy.
The research is published in The Lancet Oncology and was conducted by David Cella et al.
The findings underscore the potential for the new treatment combination in improving patients’ course of treatment and extending survival.
Advanced kidney cancer occurs when cancer cells inhibit the inner lining of kidney tubules, which help filter and clean the blood.
Over the last 20 years, treatments for the disease have improved, transitioning from biologic response-modifying drugs to more targeted therapies.
More recently, the addition of immunotherapy treatments, which are often combined with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, have further improved patient quality of life and survival.
Previous research has found that patients with advanced kidney cancer who were given a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (lenvatinib) plus immunotherapy (pembrolizumab) had better survival compared with patients who received a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (sunitinib) alone.
In the current study, the team assessed health-related quality of life outcomes.
Overall, they found that patients given lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab treatment had a similar or better quality of life compared to patients given sunitinib alone.
The findings suggest that the combination treatment may be a promising first-line therapy for advanced kidney cancer.
If you care about kidney health, please read studies about how to improve outcomes of chronic kidney disease, and common heartburn drugs may cause gradual yet ‘silent’ kidney damage.
For more information about kidney health, please see recent studies about how to protect your kidney health if you have diabetes, and results showing how to live long with kidney disease.
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