Cancer of the Kidney clinical trials

MEDI4736 (Durvalumab) in Patients With Brain Metastasis From Epithelial-derived Tumors

Brain metastases are the most common intracranial malignancy occurring in 20-40% of all cancers, and the presence of CNS metastases is associated with a poor prognosis. As such, the median overall survival of patients with symptomatic brain lesions is a dismal 2-3 months regardless of tumor type. Because standard chemotherapy largely does not cross the blood brain barrier at a meaningful concentration, standard treatment is limited and usually involves surgical resection and/or stereotactic radiosurgery for isolated lesions and whole brain radiation for multiple lesions. Unfortunately, the median overall survival is only improved by about 6 months with this multimodality approach2, and there is a paucity of second-line therapies to treat recurrence. Furthermore, re-resection and re-radiation are often not feasible options due to concern for increasing complications or neurotoxicity, respectively. Thus, there is a dire clinical need for additional treatment options for this patient population. Checkpoint blockade therapy, in particular PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibition, has recently shown clinical efficacy in multiple types of solid tumors. The investigators propose to study the efficacy of checkpoint blockade therapy in patients with solid tumors and refractory/recurrent brain metastases. The investigators will assess the efficacy of MEDI4736, a novel PD-L1 inhibitory monoclonal antibody, in this study.