Kidney cancer also called 'renal cancer,' or ' renal cell carcinoma' (RCC) refers to cancer that has arisen from the kidney, and is by far the most common type of kidney cancer. About 9 out of 10 kidney cancers are RCC. Among RCC subtypes, clear cell RCC (ccRCC) is the most common. Incidence of ccRCC is increasing, comprising 80% of localized disease and more than 90% of metastatic disease.
Immunotherapy is a new class of cancer treatment that works to harness the innate powers of the immune system to fight cancer. An important part of the immune system is its ability to keep itself from attacking normal cells in the body. To do this, it uses “checkpoints,” which are molecules on immune cells that need to be turned on (or off) to start an immune response. Cancer cells sometimes use these checkpoints to avoid being attacked by the immune system. But newer drugs that target these checkpoints hold a lot of promise as cancer treatments. Drugs that target PD-1, a protein on immune system cells called programmed cell death 1, T cells that normally helps keep these cells from attacking other cells in the body. By blocking PD-1, the drug boosts the immune response against cancer cells. However, in RCC cancer, the treatment based on the inhibition of PD-1 leads only about 30% clinical responses in cancer patients. There is a need to find a treatment strategy which allows to have few side effects and avoid relapses.
Thus, the invention is in the field of oncology. In particular, the invention relates to methods and pharmaceutical compositions for predicting and treating a subject suffering from renal cell carcinoma.
Scientific publication(s):
Cancer Res., 2016 Nov 21, Granier C. et al., Tim-3 expression on tumor-infiltrating PD-1+CD8+T cells correlates with poor clinical outcome in renal cell carcinoma, pii: canres.0274.2016