Harnessing the molecular landscape to improve renal cancer patient management

Immunotherapy, where the body's own immune system is 'strengthened', is today used to treat kidney cancer when the disease has spread (metastasized). Treatment is initiated when the metastases are visible on scanning images.
However, only half of the patients benefit from the treatment, and there are currently no biomarkers that can reliably identify those patients who will benefit from the treatment, and those who will not.

The purpose of this study is therefore to identify new biomarkers that can be used to determine whether a given kidney cancer patient will benefit from treatment against metastatic kidney cancer. We will therefore examine the kidney cancer nodules thoroughly and look for signals from their surrounding micro-environment which will hopefully help us further to determine whether the patient will benefit from immunotherapy.

Furthermore, we want to investigate whether the combination of surgery together with immunotherapy gives a better survival. If the project is carried out successfully, our results will benefit both patients and the healthcare system; expensive medical treatments must be given in a timely manner but only to patients who need treatment and who are very likely to benefit from the given treatment.