A Belgian Registry of Interleukin-2 Administration for Treatment of Metastatic Renal Cell Cancer and Confrontation With Literature Data

Abstract

In an effort to map the use of interleukin-2 (IL-2) treatment in patients with clear cell renal cell cancer (RCC) in Belgian hospitals, 44 cases were registered from 9 hospitals between February 2003 and June 2006. It was demonstrated that the majority of these patients were treated with subcutaneous (SC) IL-2. Other methods such as the inhalation of the drug in case of intrathoracic disease or high dose intravenous (IV) administration were much less frequent (3 and 0 cases in this registry, respectively). The results of antitumour activity (around 16% partial response-absence of complete responses) and toxicity of this drug correlate with observations from the literature with the SC administration. In view of the poor results and tolerance with the currently used cytokines (IL-2 or interferon-alfa), much hope is directed towards the development of the novel targeted drugs like sunitinib or sorafenib used alone or in combination with cytokines in this disease.

Current status and challenges of cytokine pharmacology

“…, 2007). The therapeutic effectiveness of IL‐2, widely used in oncology, is generally considered significant but rather low (Bambust et al. , 2007).…”

VEGF neutralizing antibody increases the therapeutic efficacy of vinorelbine for renal cell carcinoma

“…The outlook from cases using IL‐2 cytokine treatment is not much better with a median survival period of approximately 10 months [3] and a 5‐year survival rate of <10%[4]. In addition, many studies have suggested that the use of a high dose of IL‐2 results in toxicity and thus, limits the applicability of the cytokine to RCC patients [5, 6].…”