Around 338,000 new cases of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are diagnosed worldwide per year (1). RCC is one of the most immune responsive human cancers. For a long time the only available treatment were high-dose IL-2 and IFN-α with only a few patients achieving durable responses. Clinical trials conducted in the past 15 years have led to the approval of several anti-angiogenic treatments, mainly vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) inhibitors and mTOR inhibitors. Currently most patients receive first line anti-VEGF therapy.
Recently a better understanding of the mechanisms by which tumours evade the immune system has led to the development of checkpoint inhibitors, such as anti CTLA-4, anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 antibodies that have been tested in various tumour types.
Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have approved the human IgG4 anti-PD1 monoclonal antibody, nivolumab, for advanced/metastatic clear cell RCC (ccRCC) patients who have received prior antiangiogenic therapy. PD-1 is a key immune-checkpoint receptor (ICR) expressed by activated T cells, which mediates immunosuppression primarily in peripheral tissues, where T cells may encounter the immunosuppressive PD-1 ligands, PD-L1 (B7-H1) and PD-L2(B7-DC) on tumour cells, stromal cells or both.
Despite encouraging results, the clinical response to anti-PD1 is not as wide as expected and there are not any biomarkers 1) that are able to predict which patients will respond and 2) that predict response to nivolumab in patients with ccRCC.
BIOREN is a translational, prospective, observational 3-cohort study.
The aims of BIOREN are to characterize the genetic background of the tumours and also their immune environment, to try and identify biomarkers of response and to better understand the mechanisms of resistance to nivolumab in renal cancer. We will focus on:
* Tregs function and modulation of function,
* NK cells known to be regulated by nivolumab,
* The biological rationale for coupling CXCR4 antagonist with anti PD-1 therapy, analysed with mice models,
* To try to identify biomarkers of response by further characterization of the tumours and evaluating the immune status.
The project will enrol patients receiving in 2nd or 3rd line treatment for metastatic ccRCC: Nivolumab but also, as control cohorts, either everolimus or axitinib (approved treatments in this setting), as well as cabozantinib in France (recently approved in 2nd or 3rd line).
French blood samples and archival FFPE (formalin-fixed paraffin embedded) specimens will be analysed in in France, and also sent to the partners of the Transcan project Consortium (Israel, Italy and Spain).
