Elizabeth Kozik: Kidney cancer patients need adjuvant therapy

What is the situation of kidney cancer patients in Poland?

In Poland, about 5,200 diagnoses of kidney cancer are made annually. Nearly half of this number are confirmed deaths. This is a huge percentage. It can be said that half of the people with kidney cancer cannot be saved. Nevertheless, there have been many positive changes in the treatment pattern in recent times. The efforts of patient organizations have been successful and immunotherapy has finally been introduced. However, things are never so good that they can't get better.

In view of this, what are the most urgent needs of patients in terms of changes in the pattern of systemic treatment of kidney cancer within the public health system?

The idea is to introduce so-called adjuvant, or complementary, treatment. This means, introducing treatment after radical surgery. People with very advanced cancer that threatens to recur are qualified for such surgery. To avoid recurrence and prolong recovery, it is adjuvant treatment that should be introduced. It not only contributes to prolonging the time without recurrence, but very often even saves patients' lives. This is now the most urgent need, given that such treatment is already being introduced in many other cancers. What is known is that the earlier we introduce targeted, good treatment, the better the patient's chances of survival. Actually, it is only in kidney cancer that we do not have such an opportunity now, despite the fact that the guidelines of the Polish Society of Clinical Oncology and international organizations, unanimously recommend the use of pembrolizumab in adjuvant treatment of kidney cancer. This is the latest drug that offers a chance for a cure. Access to this drug is the missing element in the drug program today. The use of this product means reducing the risk of disease recurrence and increasing the patient's chance of a complete cure. In my opinion, complementary treatment will reduce the number of patients who develop advanced stages. This, in turn, will not only bring clinical benefits compared to treatment in the first, second and subsequent lines, but will also generate savings in spending on immunotherapy and other drugs currently funded in subsequent lines of treatment. One has to take into account the fact that, on the whole, we seemingly introduce a new drug that costs money, but it affects the reduction in spending, because we save the patient from another, also expensive treatment.

How does PARS support kidney cancer patients and how does it contribute to awareness of this cancer?

We have been dealing with kidney cancer for several years. There is very little general awareness about it, and it is in this element that the essence of rapid diagnosis lies. What is needed is to stimulate oncological vigilance. We started with the "Kidney is fashionable" campaign. In it, we are committed to talking about the fact that every noticed change should be checked. Performing an abdominal ultrasound should be everyone's responsibility from time to time. After all, early diagnosed disease is most often curable. We are also a member of the International Kidney Coalition (IKCC), so we have data on access to treatment in other countries. Our website has a tab with full information about kidney cancer: symptoms and patient pathway. We are promoting the Crisis Center, which is a platform where all up-to-date information about cancer and the patient pathway is provided. For now, the data is only for lung, breast and ovarian cancer. We are working on hemato-oncology and skin cancer. Next year we will post information on kidney cancer, and eventually we want to have all cancers developed there. At: centrumkryzysowe.org.pl you can find a compendium of up-to-date and reliable knowledge about all these cancers. We also conduct webinars for patients and their relatives.

Thank you for the interview.