Systemic treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma: change of paradigms after introduction of targeted therapy]

The goal of this work was to describe the change of treatment paradigms for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) since 2006. We retrospectively investigated all mRCC patients who were treated with targeted therapy between June 2006 and June 2012 at the University of Munster. In all, 50 of 158 (31.6 %) patients were initially treated with immunotherapy. The most often used second line treatment after immunotherapy was sorafenib (29 patients, 58.0 %). The first line treatment chosen for therapy-na < ve patients was sunitinib (68 patients, 63.0 %). There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups (572 vs. 554 days, p = 0.745). A total of 77 patients had synchronous metastasis (48.8 %), 55 of whom underwent cytoreductive nephrectomy. There was a significant survival benefit in favor of surgically treated patients (510 vs. 186 days, p = 0.002). After introduction of the new agents treatment paradigms have changed substantially. Immunotherapy is used only rarely. Cytoreductive nephrectomy may continue to be regarded as standard treatment until prospective data are available.