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KIDNEY CANCER

Cytoreductive nephrectomy in metastatic renal cancer — less is more

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CARMENA, a trial comparing the efficacy of sunitinib alone to that of nephrectomy followed by sunitinib in patients with primary metastatic renal cell carcinoma who require targeted therapy has demonstrated the non-inferiority of systemic therapy alone. The data provided by this and other studies argue for a lesser role of surgery in the management of these patients.

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Correspondence to Axel Bex.

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Competing interests

A.B. has served on the advisory boards of Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Genentech, Ipsen, Novartis, Pfizer, and Roche. All remunerations were made to an institutional account. He was the principle investigator of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) SURTIME trial that was in part funded by an educational grant from Pfizer to the EORTC. J.H. has served on the advisory boards of BMS, Genentech, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, and Roche. All remunerations were made to an institutional account.

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Bex, A., Haanen, J. Cytoreductive nephrectomy in metastatic renal cancer — less is more. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 15, 595–596 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41571-018-0065-4

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