VEGF neutralizing antibody increases the therapeutic efficacy of vinorelbine for renal cell carcinoma

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is currently one of the most treatment-resistant malignancies and affects approximately three in 10,000 people. The impact of this disease produces about 31,000 new cases in the United States per year; and 12,000 people in the United States alone die from RCC annually. Although several treatment strategies have been investigated for RCC, this cancer continues to be a therapeutic challenge. For this reason, the aim of our study is to develop a more effective combinational therapy to treat advanced RCC. We examined the effect of vinorelbine on the signalling pathways of two human renal cancer cell lines (A498 and 786-O) and also examined the in vivo effect of vinorelbine treatment alone and vinorelbine in combination with the anti-VEGF antibody 2C3 on A498 and 786-O tumour growth in nude mice. Tumour angiogenesis was measured by vWF staining, and apoptosis was determined by the TUNEL assay. We observed a significant tumour growth inhibition when using a combinational therapy of anti-VEGF antibody 2C3 and vinorelbine in both A498 and 786-O tumour-bearing mice. The results suggest a breakthrough treatment for advanced RCC.