August 8, 2007
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Doctors and researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Comprehensive Cancer Center played a key role in formulating the new national guidelines for kidney cancer treatments.
Published August 1 by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), the updated Kidney Cancer Guidelines are considered the gold standard for oncology and chemotherapeutic care.
A key feature of the updated Kidney Cancer Guidelines is adding the chemotherapy drug temsirolimus (brand name Torisel™) as an option for doctors in first-line therapy for their patients with relapsed or inoperable Stage IV renal cancer.
Christopher L. Amling, M.D., F.A.C.S., is director of UAB’s Division of Urology and a noted expert in kidney cancer care. He and other UAB faculty helped the Comprehensive Cancer Center gather and review research on temsirolimus and other anti-cancer agents, surgical techniques and therapeutic regimens. Also, UAB participated in some of the clinical trials that were part of the review.
“This update incorporates important new medical therapies for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer, which hope to prolong the survival of patients with metastatic, inoperable disease,” Amling said.
Adding temsirolimus is based on the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug for renal cell carcinoma. FDA approval came after clinical trial results showed temsirolimus prolonged overall cancer patient survival.
The new guidelines also add bevacizumab (brand name Avastin®) in combination with interferon alfa-2a as an option for doctors in first-line therapy for their patients with relapsed or inoperable Stage IV kidney cancer.
The kidney guidelines are part of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™. They are developed and updated through an evidence-based process that includes review of the scientific evidence by multidisciplinary panels from 21 of the nation’s top cancer centers, including the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
UAB’s center was one of the first 11 to earn comprehensive status from the National Institutes of Health in the early 1970s. Today it is the only comprehensive cancer center in Alabama and a five-state region.
The UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center joined NCCN in 1996.