Renal-Cell Carcinoma — Molecular Pathways and Therapies

Renal-cell carcinoma is among the most resistant of tumors to therapy. Until 2005, only a single treatment, high-dose interleukin-2, had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of this disease. The approval was based on durable complete responses in 5% of patients with metastatic disease,1 but high-dose therapy with interleukin-2 is quite toxic, and in most patients its benefit is unclear.In this issue of the Journal, Motzer et al.2 and Escudier et al.3 report on the results of phase 3 trials of two oral, small-molecule kinase inhibitors, sunitinib malate and sorafenib, respectively. Both drugs . . .