Kidney cancer: Highlights from 2006

Objectives: This paper communicates the most relevant findings on renal cell carcinoma (RCC) presented at the 2006 annual meetings of the European Association of Urology (EAU), American Urological Association (AUA), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and discussed during a closed meeting in Marbella in October 2006. Furthermore, the attendees' opinions on a representative clinical case study were assessed using interactive voting and experts in the field commented on the results. Methods: The most relevant new findings were selected by urologic experts in the field of RCC. Results: With regard to treatment of localised RCC, partial nephrectomy remains relatively uncommon, even for small tumours (< 4 cm). In addition, studies presented on the minimally invasive techniques, cryoablation and radiofrequency ablation, are clearly promising; however, more data are needed to further evaluate their long-term oncologic outcomes. With regard to advanced RCC, important studies were presented that further evaluated the efficacy and safety of several angiogenesis inhibitors. Sunitinib was superior to interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) as first-line treatment for patients with advanced clear-cell RCC. Sorafenib significantly prolonged the progression-free survival compared to placebo in patients previously treated for advanced RCC. Monotherapy with temsirolimus significantly increased the overall survival time in poor-risk patients compared to IFN-alpha alone or combination therapy with temsirolimus and IFN-alpha. Conclusions: Relevant new data on surgical and minimally invasive treatment of localised disease and promising systemic treatments for advanced RCC were presented at the 2006 urologic/oncologic meetings.