The promising role of nivolumab in renal cell cancers.

The therapeutic efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors across numerous tumor types has resulted in approval for neoplasms such as melanoma and lung cancer. Nivolumab is a fully humanized IgG4 antibody that inhibits immune checkpoint between programmed death 1 (PD-1) on T cells and PD-1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) and ligand 2 (PD-L2) on immune and cancer cells. Motzer and Colleagues published the findings of Nivolumab versus everolimus in advanced kidney cancer in the November issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. This trial showed that nivolumab resulted in better median overall survival of 25 months compared to everolimus at 19.6 months, with a hazard ratio for death at 0.73, meeting pre-specified criterion for superiority in favor of nivolumab. These findings mark the defining beneficial role of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in metastatic kidney cancer.