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Kidney cancer

Overall survival with adjuvant pembrolizumab in renal cell carcinoma — the shock of the lightning

In the KEYNOTE-564 trial, patients with resected clear cell renal cell carcinoma at a high risk of relapse experienced disease-free survival and especially overall survival benefits following treatment with pembrolizumab, which in turn was established as the novel standard adjuvant therapy for these patients. Accurate patient selection is crucial. Managing post-pembrolizumab recurrence is challenging owing to limited evidence for guiding therapeutic decisions based on clinical features.

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Fig. 1: Management of disease progression after adjuvant pembrolizumab in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

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Correspondence to Francesco Massari.

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F.M. has received research support and/or honoraria from Astellas, BMS, Janssen, Ipsen, MSD and Pfizer outside the submitted work. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Massari, F., Rosellini, M. & Mollica, V. Overall survival with adjuvant pembrolizumab in renal cell carcinoma — the shock of the lightning. Nat Rev Urol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41585-024-00896-6

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