Subgroup analyses showed that patients in the cabozantinib group consistently had a lower risk of events, with hazard ratios ranging from 0.22 to 0.84, regardless of their Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center risk group, number of organs with metastases, presence of both visceral and bone metastases, number of prior VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors, the specific VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor in patients who had received only one, and prior immunotherapy targeting the programmed death pathway.
The 42 patients who had previously received immunotherapy targeting that pathway were among those seeming to derive most benefit, Dr. Escudier reported. “Of course, this is a small number, but certainly an observation [of interest] when many patients are going to receive nivolumab as second-line in kidney cancer. This drug is still very active after PD-1 or PD-L1 antibodies.”