Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma: Results Of A Population-Based Study With 25 Years Follow-Up

Main Category: Urology / Nephrology
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 23 Nov 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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UroToday.com - The Munich Cancer Registry (MCR) was established in 1978 as the clinical registry of the Munich Cancer Centre and in the beginning cooperated with the two University hospitals in Munich. Since 1988 collaborations have extended to all hospitals in the city and district of Munich, monitoring 2.3 million people. The enrolment area was extended by the Bavarian Cancer Registration Law up to a region with 3.8 million inhabitants in 2002 and 4.4 million inhabitants in 2007. The MCR and its data shall be considered population-based at least since 1988.

These results in metastatic renal cell cancer (RCC) show the minor progress in therapy with slight improvements in median survival (13.2 months in 1978-87 and 15.6 months since 2002) and 5-year relative survival (17 % in 1978-87 and 21 % since 2002) as it has found access in the treatment of the broad population. The lack of detailed information about individual therapies can demonstrate the limitation of these population-based data, but nevertheless, remarkably effective therapies must be represented in population-based data.

Besides, the results correspond well with those of a single institution study by a RCC referral center, which claims to pursue a uniform, aggressive therapeutic approach in a general RCC patient population 1.

After decades of stagnancy, in spite of immunotherapy, new targeted therapies with sunitinib, sorafenib and bevacizumab have raised great expectations in the further treatment of metastatic RCC.

The published results of this population-based cohort of the MCR from 1978 to 2005 can therefore serve as a benchmark or a base for comparisons with the future outcomes of newest targeted therapies.

Reference:

1. Belldegrun, A.S. et al., Cancer-specific survival outcomes among patients treated during the cytokine era of kidney cancer. Cancer 2008; 113:2457-63

Written by Anne Schlesinger-Raab, MD and Jutta Engel, MD, as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.com

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