Active immunotherapy for renal cancer
Renal cancer has a high metastatic potential, with about 30% patients having distant metastases at the time of diagnosis. Metastatic lesions tend to develop in more than 20% patients following nephrectomy. Renal cancer is typically resistant to chemoradiotherapy, which upgrades immunotherapy as first-choice therapy in the systemic treatment of this disease.
Available data (Davydov et al. 2006) suggests that median survival rate in patients with disseminated renal cancer ranges between 6 and 12 months, and 2-year survival rate is about 10%. Figure 6 demonstrates survival data for 18 XPV vaccine-treated patients (12 males, 6 females; age 54-76) with IV stage renal cancer.
Figure 6. Survival curve of XPV-treated renal cancer patients (n=18)
Clinical results obtained with an XPV-treated cohort of patients with renal cancer convincingly demonstrated that about 50% vaccine-treated patients survived for longer than 4 years, which makes XPV-based anti-cancer immunotherapy a very promising strategy of choice in managing renal cancer patients.
Examples:
Case 1. A 64-year-old female patient was diagnosed with clear cell cancer (renal adenocarcinoma) of the right kidney (T4NxMx) upon surgical inspection of the abdominal cavity. The patient had strong abdominal pain on the right side, elevated ESR (40 mm/h) and normal excretory kidney function. Computer tomography (CT) revealed a tumor lump (76×60×100 mm) of the right kidney intimately adjacent to the liver. Vaccine therapy was initiated and well tolerated. Immediately after vaccination, we noted the development of tissue induration of 30- 40 mm in diameter at the injection site. Three months after the onset of vaccine therapy, ERS values returned to the base level (11 mm/h), and no sighs of tumor growth were observed by ultrasonography. A final follow-up examination 2.5 years after vaccine therapy showed no evidence of disease progression.
Case 2. A 61-year-old female patient was initially subjected to surgery due to developing cysts in the left kidney followed by nephrectomy one month later. Metastases of renal cell carcinoma were detected in the right ovary followed by total hysterectomy and subsequent course of interferon immunotherapy. Several months later, multifocal tumor lesions of the right kidney and adrenal gland were revealed by CT. The patient was subjected to vaccine therapy. A final 3-year follow-up examination showed stabile health status of the patient and no evidence of disease progression.