Radiation therapy as monotherapy is safe and effective for treating oligometastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC), according to a new study published at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. In The Lancet Oncology, the researchers published their findings today.
The MD Anderson RCC Oligometastatic Phase-2 trial, spearheaded by Chad Tang, M.D., senior lecturer of Radiology, is the person to examine and review the use of targeted therapy radiation treatment as an alternative medication to benchmark structural treatment for oligometastatic RCC, an illness condition in which a tiny amount of new RCC tumors structure for one or two other parts of the body.
As An Alternative To Systemic Chemotherapy For Kidney Cancer
From various experts, there have been different opinions about the effects of chemotherapy as well as radiation. However, a study in this direction led by a group of specialists has come up as a torchbearer to the experts in this field.
It is observed that radiation therapy can also act as an excellent alternative to chemo. The study can be helpful to many patients across the USA, said a team member.
In patient populations with RCC, the most popular form of renal cancer, sequential SBRT as a single-agent has proven antimicrobial activities and holds average advancement survivorship of 22.7 quarters.
This demonstrates that radiation oncology’s dogma that RCC is biologically radio-resistant can be challenged, Tang said. “Our approach of iteratively radiating tumors as they appear has shown promising results.”. It is another example of radiation therapy proving to be a viable alternative therapy to systemic treatment.”
SBRT precisely treats tumors while avoiding damage to surrounding healthy tissue by using highly concentrated doses of radiation. SBRT is a non-invasive local treatment that is applied repeatedly to control metastatic lesions in a variety of anatomic locations using computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other advanced imaging techniques. Patients usually undergo this treatment if they have lung cancer or prostate cancer that has not spread beyond their lungs.
Among kidney cancer patients, radiation therapy is most commonly used as a palliative treatment, whereas systemic therapies, such as immunotherapy and targeted agents, are considered the first-line of treatment. Despite their high effectiveness, systemic therapy agents are toxic and may affect the entire body.
Our goal was to provide RCC patients with an alternative treatment that was less toxic, less costly, and less toxic to systemic therapy by developing this novel treatment strategy, Tang said.
Thirty patients diagnosed with RCC that was a clear cell subtype and didn’t have at least five metastatic lesions were involved in the study from July 2018 to September 2020. Twenty Caucasians (67%), seven Hispanics (23%), two Blacks (7%), and one Native American (3%) participated in the trial. In this study, 65 percent of the participants were male, and 20 percent were female (6 women and 24 men). Study objectives included estimating PFS and determining feasibility.
Conservative management resulted in good tolerability of radiation therapy. No patient required dose reductions or discontinuation due to toxicity after undergoing radiation therapy. One patient experienced hyperglycemia, three experienced pains, and two experienced a grade 2 event.
After treatment, biopsies collected three months later confirmed radiation therapy effectively eliminated tumor cells or significantly reduced their proliferation. At the first follow-up, researchers performed biopsies using CT guidance on 14 patients. Out of six (42%) patients, no malignancy was detected. Patients who were still able to be tested after radiation therapy showed a decrease in tumor cell proliferation of about 14% to 7%. Twenty-three of the reported study subjects (76%) were not on systemic therapy at the end of the study period.
