Research Should Focus on Grasping Mechanisms of Integrative Kidney Cancer Care

Video

According to an expert from University Hospitals, studying pathways related to inflammation, epigenetics, and the microbiome may elucidate how patients with kidney cancer respond to anti-cancer therapy.

During Kidney Cancer Awareness Month 2023, Santosh Rao, MD, spoke with CancerNetwork® about how future research on mechanisms such as the gut microbiome, inflammation, and epigenetics, may help patients with kidney cancer and other tumors derive more benefit from integrative treatments.

Rao, medical director of integrative oncology for University Hospitals Connor Whole Health and president-elect for the Society for Integrative Oncology, also described the need to broaden the scope of research in terms of integrative medicine by focusing more closely on cancer types beyond breast and prostate cancer, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC), ovarian cancer, and bladder cancer.

Transcript:

First of all, we need to keep doing studies in different types of cancers. While a lot of studies tend to focus on certain types of cancers, we need to broaden it out and have more studies that involve our patients with renal cell carcinoma, bladder cancer, and ovarian cancer. That helps because you don’t want to get the sense that it’s the same for everyone. The more you can engage in studies in different populations or different cancer types, that’s helpful.

The key thing is to have high quality research. If we find that there are things that are beneficial, we need to keep working, in my opinion, on mechanism. There’s this great feeling that a lot of the integrative modalities are partly beneficial just from the placebo effect and getting the sense that we’re just making somebody feel better, which is important in and of itself. But it would be helpful as we learn more to get a better understanding of what’s really happening from a mechanisms standpoint.

Many times, we know that some of the mechanisms are through certain pathways like reducing inflammation and improvements in epigenetics and the microbiome. But getting a better understanding of the interplay between these different systems will give us a better sense of how modifiable different aspects of response to therapy and toxicity. We’re learning more all the time, so I think the science is actually really interesting to me.

Newsletter

Stay up to date on recent advances in the multidisciplinary approach to cancer.

Recent Videos
Success with the 177Lu-PSMA-617 radioligand therapy would be transformative for the clear cell renal cell carcinoma treatment landscape.
An ongoing phase 1 trial seeks to prove XmAb819 as an effective treatment and ENPP3 as a plausible target in patients with relapsed or refractory RCC.
“The therapy is designed to prevent both CAR T-cell inactivation and to restore the anti-tumor immunity of the white blood cells that have gotten through the tumor,” said Marasco, MD, PhD.
Ongoing studies aim to combine base immunotherapy regimens with novel agents to potentially improve outcomes among patients with kidney cancer.
Investigators have found a way to reduce liver and biliary toxicity when targeting the molecule CAIX in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.
Neoantigen-targeting vaccines resulted in an absence of recurrence in 9 patients with high-risk kidney cancer, according to David A. Braun, MD, PhD.
The Kidney Cancer Research Consortium may allow collaborators to form more mechanistic and scientifically driven efforts in the field.
Wayne A. Marasco, MD, PhD, stated that by targeting 2 molecules instead of 1, higher levels of tumor cell killing can be achieved in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.
Leading experts in the breast cancer field highlight the use of CDK4/6 inhibitors, antibody-drug conjugates, and other treatment modalities.
Related Content