Recent Advances In Interleukin2-associated Treatment Of Renal Cell Carcinoma

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the common urological tumors,the incidence of which has been escalating in recent years around the world.Owing to, on one hand, its resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy and,on the other, its special immunogenicity, immunotherapy has long been thebasic treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Among allimmunotherapeutic agents available, Interleukin2(IL-2) remains the mostextensively and intensively studied. It has been used in clinic for about20years and still has been ranked as one of the first-line drugs in a variety ofguidelines worldwide for treatment of mRCC. IL-2is also perceived as theonly agent at present that may potentially cure this disease because of itsconsistent production of long-lasting responses in a fraction of RCC patients.However, due to its severe toxicity as well as the challenges by novelmolecular targeted therapies, expansive applications of IL-2relatedtherapies are still limited. In order to maximize the therapeutic efficacy ofIL-2, numerous probes have been made, such as change of administrationroute, employment of low-dose IL-2, combined therapies with otherantitumor agents et al. More recently, an increasing amount of researches are focused on screening patients who are genetically, pathologically andclinically determined beneficiaries of the desirable effect of IL-2. Hopefully,a considerable improvement of the efficacy of IL-2related therapies can beexpected soon.