Kyriakopoulos, Christos E.

BackgroundSystemic therapy (ST) can be deferred in patients who have metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) and slow‐growing metastases. Currently, this subset of patients managed with active surveillance (AS) is not well described in the literature.MethodsThis was a prospective observational study of patients with mRCC across 46 US community and academic centers. The objective was to describe baseline characteristics and demographics of patients with mRCC initially managed by AS, reasons for AS, and patient outcomes. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize demographics, baseline characteristics, and patient‐related outcomes. Wilcoxon 2‐sample rank‐sum tests and χ2 tests were used to assess differences between ST and AS cohorts in continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Kaplan‐Meier survival curves were used to assess survival.ResultsOf 504 patients, mRCC was initially managed by AS (n = 143) or ST (n = 305); 56 patients were excluded from the analysis. Disease was present in 69% of patients who received AS, whereas the remaining 31% had no evidence of disease. At data cutoff, 72 of 143 patients (50%) in the AS cohort had not received ST. The median overall survival was not reached (95% CI, 122 months to not estimable) in patients who received AS versus 30 months (95% CI, 25‐44 months) in those who received ST. Quality of life at baseline was significantly better in patients who were managed with AS versus ST.ConclusionsAS occurs frequently (32%) in real‐world clinical practice and appears to be a safe and appropriate alternative to immediate ST in selected patients.

The NCCN Guidelines for Kidney Cancer provide multidisciplinary recommendations for diagnostic workup, staging, and treatment of patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). These NCCN Guidelines Insights focus on recent updates to the guidelines, including changes to certain systemic therapy recommendations for patients with relapsed or stage IV RCC. They also discuss the addition of a new section to the guidelines that identifies and describes the most common hereditary RCC syndromes and provides recommendations for genetic testing, surveillance, and/or treatment options for patients who are suspected or confirmed to have one of these syndromes.

The NCCN Guidelines for Kidney Cancer provide multidisciplinary recommendations for the clinical management of patients with clear cell and non–clear cell renal cell carcinoma, and are intended to assist with clinical decision-making. These NCCN Guidelines Insights summarize the NCCN Kidney Cancer Panel discussions for the 2020 update to the guidelines regarding initial management and first-line systemic therapy options for patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

563 Background: Clinical trials mRCC pts are different from real world pts, resulting in bias in the literature. The MaRCC Registry is designed to survey questions not asked in tri als, such as why physicians make certain management decisions. This analysis describes reasons for physician treatment (tx) selection in the first 109 real world pts enrolled in a multicenter, prospective, observational registry. Methods: MaRCC Registry will enroll 500 pts from up to 60 US academic (ACAD) and community (COMM) sites with ~2 years of recruitment and ≥ 3 years of follow-up. Key inclusion criteria are age ≥ 18 years and diagnosis of mRCC with no prior systemic therapy (STx) for mRCC at study entry. Pts currently not on STx but who are being observed are permitted. Key endpoints include descriptive characteristics of txs, tx and patient outcomes, medication adherence, and health resource utilization. Results: At data cutoff, 105 pts have been accrued with known STx status; median age 64 (Q1-3 range, 56-70); 66% male; 75% ACAD; 87% clear cell histology; and 31% stage IV at diagnosis. Initial management decision was: 40% deferred systemic therapy (DSTx), 22% pazopanib, 18% clinical trial, 10% sunitinib, and 6% other. Among STx pts (N = 61), the most common categories for therapy choice as selected by providers were likelihood of clinical benefit (41%) followed by pt characteristics (30%). Within the clinical benefit category, the most common reason was OS/PFS (31%). Within the pt characteristic category the most common reasons included performance status/frailty (12%) or prognostic factors (12%). Common reasons for DSTx pts (N = 44) were active surveillance (AS) with disease present (39%), AS without disease present following a procedure (11%), or local therapy (7%). ACAD sites had higher percentages of pts with DSTx undergoing AS with disease present and local therapy. Conclusions: This is the first report describing factors driving physician decision making in management of mRCC. Management choices are not captured in other prospective or retrospective studies. Early experience suggests that clinical benefit and pt characteristics were common reasons for initial STx. Side effect profile rarely determined initial STx selection.