Porta C, Bellmunt J, Eisen T et al.
San Matteo University HospitalFoundation, Pavia, Italy.
Cancer Treat Rev 2010;36:16–23.
Editor’s note: With more targeted agents becoming available for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), there is an increasing need for treatment choice to be tailored to the individual patient and their tumor biology. As the patient population is extremely heterogeneous, no one agent will offer maximum benefit to all patients. This challenge is confounded by the fact that the Phase III clinical trial populations, from which these drugs obtain their licensing approval, are often not representative of the patients presenting in the outpatient clinic. Extended access programs (EAPs) may offer results from a scenario that is closer to “real-life”. With the Phase III data often not applicable to an individual patient, lower levels of evidence and clinical judgment remain crucial in the decision-making process. Porta et al. explored the key characteristics of RCC, patients, and treatments that should inform therapeutic choices.