On the 2025 ASCO Annual Assembly, key updates within the therapy of assorted cancers have been shared with physicians and sufferers, together with the therapy of newly recognized clear cell renal cell carcinoma, a sort of kidney most cancers. One such replace for this affected person inhabitants was from the section 1b STELLAR-002 trial, in keeping with Dr. Michael Serzan.
In an interview with CURE, Serzan walked by way of the important thing takeaways from the trial, what these outcomes imply for sufferers, and what subsequent steps are for this mix, given these are nonetheless early days for the examine.
Serzan is a medical oncologist within the Lank Middle for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber Most cancers Institute, in addition to an teacher of drugs at Harvard Medical Faculty, situated in Boston.
Transcript:
To kick issues off, what updates have been shared on the 2025 ASCO Annual Assembly from the section 1b STELLAR-002 examine for sufferers who’re newly recognized with clear cell renal cell carcinoma?
First, thanks a lot for having me and for internet hosting this essential session to higher inform sufferers and their caregivers about updates from ASCO 2025. My title is Dr. Michael Serzan, and I’m a medical oncologist on the Dana-Farber Most cancers Institute. I am pleased to stroll by way of the STELLAR-002 examine.
For some context, this examine was performed for sufferers with metastatic kidney most cancers, that means most cancers that had unfold to distant components of the physique. We’re very lucky to have many therapy choices that haven’t solely helped sufferers dwell higher, but additionally dwell longer. This explicit examine aimed to research a brand new mixture of therapies designed not solely to shrink most cancers, however hopefully to attain long-term management. It appeared on the security, tolerability, effectiveness of the medication, and the way lengthy sufferers remained on the examine.
The STELLAR-002 examine was a section 1 trial that utilized the brand new VEGF TKI (Vascular Endothelial Development Issue Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor), zanzalintinib (XL092). This remedy primarily targets the blood provide of clear cell kidney most cancers and is similar to a drug referred to as Cabometyx (cabozantinib), which is certainly one of our foundational therapies for kidney most cancers sufferers. The important thing distinction is that zanzalintinib has a a lot shorter half-life. This implies if sufferers expertise unwanted effects and must discontinue remedy, we are able to cease the drug, and people unwanted effects could resolve extra shortly.
The STELLAR program mixed zanzalintinib with Opdivo (nivolumab), which is certainly one of our customary immunotherapies. The second arm of the examine checked out zanzalintinib plus Opdivo and Opdualag (relatlimab-rmbw), a brand new immunotherapy drug that targets the LAG-3 receptor on the floor of immune cells. The examine was really attempting to find out if there have been variations in how nicely the medication have been tolerated and the way efficient they have been at treating the most cancers when evaluating the zanzalintinib/Opdivo arm versus the zanzalintinib/Opdivo/Opdualag arm.
Transcript has been edited for readability and conciseness.
For extra information on most cancers updates, analysis and schooling, don’t neglect to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters right here.
