Immunotherapy (Biologic Therapy)
Immunotherapy, also called biologic therapy or biotherapy, uses your immune system to fight cancer. It works to stimulate your immune system to work harder and attack diseased cells and also, by giving you man-made immune proteins to help your immune system do its job.
Immunotherapy works for some cancers better than others. It works better when combined with other kidney cancer treatment options, but it also works on its own.
Nivolumab is a newer immunotherapy drug being used to treat kidney cancer. It is given intravenously (through a vein) every two weeks.
Nivolumab works to stop or slow down the immune system response, including the anti-tumor response. Basically, it tells the immune system to stop allowing tumor activity.
In 2013, nivolumab was investigated in a large phase I trial, which included 34 kidney cancer patients with advanced stage disease. Twenty-nine percent of the kidney cancer patients were showing promising results from its anti-tumor fighting agents.
After numerous phase studies, nivolumab was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2015 for treating kidney cancer.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy drugs are given intravenously and work to destroy cancer cells by stopping their ability to grow and spread. But, as mentioned, kidney cancer is often resistant to chemotherapy.
For some patients, a combination of several different chemotherapy drugs may shrink temporary tumors. The side effects of chemotherapy — fatigue, infection, nausea, vomiting, hair loss, diarrhea and loss of appetite — can be harsh but go away after treatment is complete.
Even though chemotherapy doesn’t cure kidney cancer, you can still talk to your doctor about whether it is an option for you.
Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy involves the use of high-energy particles to destroy cancer cells. Like chemotherapy, it has not been effective in treating kidney cancer so it's rarely used alone.
Radiation therapy will only be used if you cannot have surgery and only on areas where the cancer has spread outside the kidney, such as the bones, and not the kidney tumor itself. If used on the kidney, it would damage the healthy parts.
Radiation has its side effects, including fatigue, skin reactions, stomach upset and diarrhea. Internal radiation may cause bleeding, injury to nearby issues, or infections, but most side effects go away once treatment has completed.
Managing Kidney Cancer Treatment Expectations
Any cancer diagnosis is scary and overwhelming. And there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to diagnosis, staging, treatments, and prognosis.
Remission from kidney cancer is not always possible and if your cancer cannot be cured or managed, your diseased is labeled as advanced stage or terminal. But this isn’t a reason for despair.
Things may worsen, stay the same, get better, or they will keep changing. Your cancer will be tracked with CT scans and your doctor will discuss all results and disease progression along the way
Sometimes, the information you receive may be disappointing and scary, but clarifications of things like "stable disease" helps, because this isn’t necessarily a failure. It simply means that things haven’t gotten worse, and, most importantly, you still have options.
Your doctors won't give up until they exhausted every kidney cancer treatment option so don’t let disappointment stop you from fighting to live and get better. Choose to learn from your experiences and believe things will get better.
