The Evolution of Clinical Trials in Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Status Report for 2013–2016 from the ClinicalTrials.gov Website

BACKGROUND: We previously published an analysis of clinical trials in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) using the publicly available ClinicalTrials.gov registry. Here we present a 3-year update to understand clinical research current trends in RCC compared to 2013. METHODS: The Website’s advanced search function was used to search for RCC trials. The characteristics of the trial were extracted, summarized and compared to 2013 data using Fisher’s exact tests. RESULTS: We locked our search on May 26, 2016 with 165 trials eligible, compared with 169 trials on Sep 25, 2013. There were more phase I and I/II trials in 2016 compared to 2013 (40.8% vs 24.9%, p = 0.05). More clinical trials in 2016 compared to 2013 used immunotherapy (IT) alone or in combination with other drugs (24.2% vs 10.7%, p = 0.001), and the use of targeted therapy alone (TT) declined (32.9% vs 47.9%, p = 0.005). TT+IT combination trials more than doubled (6.7% vs 2.3%, p = 0.07). The number of trials with treatment in (neo)adjuvant settings in 2016 and 2013 were similar (9.7% vs 10.6%, p = 0.77), respectively. Compared to 2013, the number of trials with non-clear cell histology remained low (n = 10). Many more trials were sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry in 2016 vs 2013 (41.5% vs 16.0%, p = <0.001). CONCLUSION: IT-based and industry sponsored clinical trials significantly increased from 2013 to 2016 with a concomitant drop in TT only trials. The increase in industry-sponsored studies may reflect the rapid uptake of expensive IT drugs. There continues to be a paucity of (neo)adjuvant studies and for non-clear cell histologies.