Interní Med. 2006; 8(10): 432-438

Interferon α in the treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma

MUDr. Šárka Lukešová¹, MUDr. Otakar Kopecký CSc¹, MUDr. Josef Dvořák², MUDr. Zdeněk Špriňar³, MUDr. Dagmar Hlávková¹

¹ Ústav klinické imunologie a alergologie, FN a LF UK Hradec Králové

² Klinika onkologie a radioterapie FN a LF UK Hradec Králové

³ Radiologická klinika FN a LF UK Hradec Králové

Patients with locally advanced stages of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are at high risk of both distant relapse and locoregional disease progression, even after radical nephrectomy. Renal cell carcinoma is refractory to both chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Immunotherapy with interferon alfa (IFN-α) alone or in combination with other drugs has been evaluated in clinical trials for efficacy. IFN monotherapy in patients with metastatic RCC provides a modest but significant prolongation of survival with manageable side effects. A subset of patients, in particular those with good performance status, lung-only disease and resected primaries, may benefit from combination chemoimmunotherapy, but more data are needed to determine whether combination therapy is superior to IFN alone.

There are findings of two patients with metastatic RCC described in this article. They were threated by chemoimmunotherapy, and then by IFN-α alone.

Keywords: Key words: interferon α, renal cell carcinoma, chemoimmunotherapy.

Published: February 1, 2007  Show citation