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Current status and future perspective of immunotherapy for renal cell carcinoma

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Abstract

In the last decade, the standard treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has evolved, mainly driven by the development and approval of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Currently, ICI monotherapy and ICI-based combinations with tyrosine kinase inhibitors and targeted therapies against mammalian target of rapamycin or vascular endothelial growth factor have become new standard treatments for first-line and subsequent-line therapies. ICIs play an important role as an adjuvant postoperative therapy, and this field is the subject of active research. Furthermore, ongoing randomized controlled trials are investigating the clinical value of more intense treatments by combining multiple effective treatments for RCC. Additionally, novel biomarkers for prognosis have been investigated. This study reviews the current evidence on immunotherapy as a treatment for RCC patients, randomized controlled trials, and ongoing studies including RCC patients and recent findings, and discusses future perspectives.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mitchell Arico from Edanz (https://jp.edanz.com/ac) for editing a draft of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Keisuke Monji.

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Junichi Inokuchi received honoraria from Astellas Pharma, and research funding from Ono Pharmaceutical, Astellas Pharma, AstraZeneca and Chugai Pharmaceutical. Masatoshi Eto received honoraria from Ono Pharmaceutical, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Novartis Pharma, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Janssen Pharmaceutical, MSD, and Merck Biopharma, and research funding from Sanofi, Bayer Yakuhin, Astellas Pharma, Ono Pharmaceutical, and Takeda Pharmaceutical.

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Blas, L., Monji, K., Mutaguchi, J. et al. Current status and future perspective of immunotherapy for renal cell carcinoma. Int J Clin Oncol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10147-023-02446-3

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