(UroToday.com) The European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2021 annual meeting’s non-prostate cancer session included a presentation by Dr. Camillo Porta discussing subgroup analyses of the CheckMate 9ER trial assessing first-line nivolumab + cabozantinib versus sunitinib among patients with advanced RCC. Previously, first-line nivolumab + cabozantinib showed a significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and objective response rate (ORR) versus sunitinib in advanced RCC patients in the phase III CheckMate 9ER trial.1 On the basis of these results, the combination of nivolumab + cabozantinib was approved by the European Commission and FDA for the first-line treatment of advanced RCC. Patients without upfront nephrectomy have poor prognoses and clinical trial data in this population remain limited. Assessment of how different baseline characteristics may impact outcomes with nivolumab + cabozantinib versus sunitinib in advanced RCC patients is of clinical interest. In this exploratory post-hoc analysis of CheckMate 9ER, Dr. Porta and colleagues presented results assessing the efficacy of nivolumab + cabozantinib versus sunitinib in patients with subgroups defined by baseline nephrectomy status after a minimum follow-up of 16.0 months.

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