Abstract
Metastatic lesions of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) occasionally regress spontaneously after surgical removal of the primary tumor. Although this is an exceptionally rare occurrence, RCC has thus been postulated to be immunogenic. Immunotherapies, including cytokine therapy, peptide-based vaccines, and immune checkpoint inhibitors have therefore been used to treat patients with advanced, metastatic RCC. We review the history, trends, and recent progress in immunotherapy for advanced RCC and discuss future perspectives, with consideration of our experimental work on galectin 9 and PINCH as promising specific immunotherapy targets.
Highlights
Metastatic lesions of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) occasionally regress spontaneously following removal of the primary disease, though this is exceptionally rare
Before the era of molecular targeting drugs, cytokine therapy with interferon (IFN) or interleukin-2 (IL-2) was widely used, and partial response (PR) and complete response (CR) were achieved in 15.9% and 1.8%, respectively, of patients with advanced RCC treated with IFN [1]
Our study suggested that galectin 9derived peptides would induce cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) that attack RCC, and remove the immunosuppressive environment caused by activation of the immune checkpoint T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 3 (TIM-3)
Summary
Metastatic lesions of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) occasionally regress spontaneously following removal of the primary disease, though this is exceptionally rare. Despite the low response rate, it is noteworthy that cytokine therapy can achieve a CR or cure in patients with advanced metastatic RCC. A previous study reported response rates to IFNα as low as 15.9% and 1.8% for PR and CR, respectively [1], it is noteworthy that cytokine therapy resulted in some instances of CR, which were not achieved with molecular targeting drugs.
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