Eric Jonasch, MD, on Next Steps in MK-6482 in VHL Disease–Associated RCC

At the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Virtual Scientific Program, researchers showed that MK-6482 induced clinical responses among patients with von Hippel-Lindau disease (VHL)–associated renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Eric Jonasch, MD, professor of genitourinary medical oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, spoke to CancerNetwork about next steps for those with von Hippel-Lindau disease–associated renal cell carcinoma being treated with the HIF-2a Inhibitor, MK-6482.

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The hope here is that this agent be approved and that in individuals who do have lesions that are starting to get to a size where they might need some type of intervention that they could get this drug instead of a surgical intervention and that they could be on this for some period of time. That would either delay or prevent the need for that surgical intervention.

The long-term dream scenario would be that, this is a disease in adolescents and young adults, so the first manifestations can occur in childhood or most commonly in adolescence or young adulthood, we could come up with a prevention strategy where individuals would receive this drug and then prevent the development of organ manifestations and that would require a follow-up study asking a different question. That could really help us to help this patient population more.