Antiangiogenic drugs as chemosensitizer in renal cell cancer

Although surgical resection of localized renal cell carcinoma (RCC) can be curative for localized disease, some patients may relapse. In addition, RCCs can be clinically silent during their course, and the initial diagnosis can be delayed until disease is either locally advanced and unresectable or metastatic. The natural history of disease for patients with advanced or metastatic RCC can widely be different from few months to many years depending on the clinical, pathologic, laboratory, and radiographic features of disease, as well as therapy response. The understanding of the molecular pathogenesis of RCC allowed to identify targets for therapeutic intervention with the development of multiple agents, having an important role in the management of patients with advanced disease. Among them, antiangiogenic drugs have changed the management of these patients considering the central role of angiogenesis in the metastatic RCC tumorigenesis and progression. In this chapter, an overview on the use of antiangiogenic drugs in the treatment of RCC, with regard to their chemosensitizer aspect, is provided.