Radiofrequency ablation found 100% effective at killing small kidney tumors

Researchers from the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center found that a minimally invasive treatment was 100% successful in eradicating small malignant kidney tumors. Doctors followed 104 patients with renal cell carcinomas (RCC), who underwent CT-guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for a total of 125 kidney tumors ranging in size from 0.6 cm to 8.8 cm. Researchers found that 95 small and 14 large tumors were completely eradicated by a single treatment, and seven more were eradicated after a second treatment. "This is the largest treatment group to date of patients with biopsy-proven renal malignancies," said Ronald J. Zagoria, M.D., professor of radiology at Wake Forest. "The results – a high cure rate and low complication rate – establish that at institutions with experience doing this procedure, this is an alternative method for treating small renal malignancies in patients who are not good surgical candidates."  The researchers believe renal cell carcinomas can be reliably and safely eradicated with percutaneous RFA regardless of their location in the kidney.

A pilot study conducted by researchers at Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center found that a combination of the drugs interferon alpha and sorafenib works better than isolated drug treatment for patients with renal cell carcinoma. The study comprised of 40 patients, out of whom two had complete responses (the tumors were destroyed) and 33% had significant tumor shrinkage. "Most tumors that respond to either therapy alone begin growing again after about five or six months," said Jared Gollob, M.D., an oncologist at Duke. "By using interferon alpha and sorafenib in combination, we not only increased the response rate, but found we could double the amount of time that these patients could survive without their tumors growing." The results of the study suggest that the efficiency of drugs like sorafenib and interferon alpha could be further improved to treat this deadly cancer.

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