Nivolumab without brain radiotherapy is insufficient for the treatment of most patients with brain metastases from clear cell renal cell carcinoma

In the article “Safety and Efficacy of Nivolumab in Brain Metastases from Renal Cell Carcinoma: Results of the GETUG-AFU 26 NIVOREN Multicenter Phase II Study” (1), the authors investigated the anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) inhibitor, nivolumab, in patients with brain metastases from clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). All patients developed progression of disease after previously receiving vascular endothelial growth factor-directed therapies. This highly valuable study adds important knowledge to our understanding of the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with brain metastases from RCC. Most published trials of immunotherapy for RCC have excluded patients with brain metastases. To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study to investigate immunotherapy for brain metastases from RCC.