Dr. Drake Discusses the Results of the CARMENA Study in RCC

Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, director of Genitourinary Oncology, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center and co-director of Columbia’s Cancer Immunotherapy Programs, discusses the results of the CARMENA study in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).

Results from the phase III CARMENA trial demonstrated the noninferiority of sunitinib (Sutent) alone compared with cytoreductive nephrectomy followed by sunitinib in patients with intermediate- and high-risk disease. Drake says that these results? were surprising, and these approaches were statistically equivalent in terms of overall survival.

Drake believes that the findings from this trial will generally reduce the use of cytoreductive nephrectomy. Nevertheless, the question of patient selection remains. There are some people in the field who believe that they can select patients who will benefit from cytoreductive nephrectomy, Drake says. Overall, cytoreductive nephrectomy is not going anywhere, but global use will go down, Drake concludes.