Notes from the 8th International Symposium

Patient advocates generously volunteered their time to take notes at the recent 8th International Kidney Cancer Symposium, in Chicago.  These notes are intended to capture the essence of this important medical meeting and convey it in a way that is useful to patients, survivors, and their families.  The first installment sumarizes the Saturday morning session.Integration of Surgical and Systemic Therapy in Metastatic RCC This session was opened by Dr. Bradley Leibovich who presented two cases on which the audience voted on methods to integrate surgery with systemic treatment interventions.  The diversity of responses opened the way to consideration of the three discussions that followed. Dr. Jorge Garcia discussed the role of neoadjuvant therapy in metastatic renal cell carcinoma.  He pointed out that patients with resectable disease offer proof of concept, that resection has a place in metastatic disease.  In patients seen as unresectable, surgery may still offer an opportunity to attempt to downstage, with surgery preceding systemic therapy.  He suggested that using PKIs may downsize and impact distant metastases. Dr. Allan H. Pantuck discussed debulking nephrectomy.  He presented the theoretical rationale for debulking which include about a 1% chance of spontaneous regression of metastatic sites, the potential to improve performance status, reduction of tumor burden and removing source=2 0of future metastases as well a...
Source: Kidney Cancer Association - Category: Urology & Nephrology Source Type: news