KCRS26 — Kidney Cancer Research Summit 2026

Quality of life data from LITESPARK-22 #KCRS26 (pembro+belzutifan in adjuvant RCC). Three different tools (FKSI/EORTCQLQ30/GP5) show a temporary dip in global and physical/role function QOL while on therapy, which didn’t hit predefined clinically meaningful levels. This is consistent with the reversible belzutifan toxicity signal (fatigue/anaemia). There is a need to look at quality of life analysis in different ways

Many thx to @tompowles1 @BartsECMC for submitting data from #LITESPARK022 to #KCRS26! Wonderful to see a detailed assessment of

Fitting to see LITESPARK-022 quality-of-life data debut at a patient-advocacy-led meeting. @tompowles1 presenting at #KCRS26.

Adjuvant pembro + belzutifan adds reversible grade 3+ toxicity, but the PROs are reassuring:
📊 Symptoms stable, side-effect bother "not at all/a little bit" for >78%
🔍 Physical and role functioning dipped on treatment, then recovered to match placebo
🎯 No clinically meaningful PRO change at week 84

The DFS gain does not come at a lasting quality-of-life cost. Awaiting OS data🩺

Fascinating to hear from @tompowles1 at #KCRS26 that patient-reported QOL data with belzutifan in Litespark-022 align with toxicity data and is reversible upon discontinuation of treatment

🎯 Opening the Best of #KCRS26 plenary,
Dr. Tom Powles presents patient reported outcomes from LITESPARK-022, adjuvant pembrolizumab plus belzutifan versus pembrolizumab plus placebo after surgery for ccRCC
🎯 Anemia occurred in 84% of patients on adjuvant pembrolizumab plus belzutifan, yet FKSI-DRS and QLQ-C30 scores stayed stable through week 84 with no clinically meaningful difference versus pembrolizumab plus placebo.
An important reminder that AE tables and patient experience are not the same measure

🔬 Dr. Praful Ravi presents LASER, a phase 2 trial of 177Lu-PSMA-617 in PSMA-positive metastatic ccRCC 📊 #KCRS26

🧠 Rationale: PSMA is expressed on tumor neovasculature in ccRCC, confirmed by IHC and RNAseq, and can be imaged with PSMA-PET/CT

⚙️ Single center investigator sponsored trial in advanced ccRCC after at least one prior IO and one prior TKI, requiring at least one PSMA-avid lesion with no or limited PSMA-negative disease

🔄 Two cycles, then interim PET, with up to four more cycles. Simon style design: at least one response among the first 9 patients would have triggered expansion to 24

📉 Best objective response by RECIST in those 9:
no complete or partial responses
stable disease in 2 (22%, best change -3.6% and +5.7%), progressive disease in 3 (33%), unevaluable in 4 (44%) after discontinuing following one cycle for clinical progression

⏱️ Swimmer plot shows short time on treatment, with most patients progressing within roughly 3 months

✅ Well tolerated, but no single agent activity in this heavily pretreated population

❓ Open questions raised: target expression and PSMA-negative disease, drug target engagement and persistence, and radioresistance

🎯 Conclusion: future radiopharmaceutical trials in ccRCC should focus on alternative targets and combination strategies

In the COSMIC-313 analysis, higher baseline KIM-1 was associated with:
🩸Poor-risk IMDC disease
🩸Worse overall survival
❓Can dynamic changes in KIM-1 become an early marker of treatment response?

🔬 @VincentWenxinXu presents a post hoc analysis of COSMIC-313: plasma KIM-1 and outcomes in advanced ccRCC 📊 #KCRS26

🧪 Serial plasma KIM-1 by enzyme based electrochemiluminescence in first line C+N+I vs N+I, intermediate or poor risk, baseline available in 703 of 855 randomized

🩸 Higher baseline KIM-1 tracked with IMDC poor risk (p=1e-10) and absence of prior nephrectomy (p<2.2e-16)

📏 KIM-1 correlated with radiographic tumor burden at weeks 1 and 10 (R=0.58, p<2.5e-16)

📉 Dichotomized at the median, higher baseline KIM-1 was associated with worse OS in both arms, HR 0.65 (95% CI 0.49 to 0.88) with C+N+I and 0.69 (0.51 to 0.93) with N+I

🤔 No association with ORR or PFS (HR 0.98 in both arms), so the signal is survival specific

📐 A 1 SD rise in baseline KIM-1 carried a 19% higher hazard of death (HR 1.19, 1.07 to 1.3) independent of clinical covariates including IMDC, nephrectomy, sarcomatoid features, nodal and brain disease, and total lesion diameter. Adding KIM-1 improved the model (Δχ²=9.7, p=0.0018, ΔAIC -7.7)

🧬 The tumor burden effect attenuated once KIM-1 entered the model, suggesting lesion diameter is a partial surrogate for biology KIM-1 captures more directly

🩻 Low baseline KIM-1 tumors were enriched for hypoxia, angiogenesis and stromal signatures (N=406, GSVA and xCell)

🎯 KIM-1 and angiogenesis appear to be independent, additive prognostic axes beyond IMDC risk

📊 @DrRanaMcKay presents pooled safety of casdatifan monotherapy from ARC-20 at #KCRS26 🔬

💊 Dose expansion in 2L+ metastatic ccRCC, HIF-2α inhibitor naive, pooled N=127 across 50 mg BID, 50 mg QD, 100 mg QD and 150 mg QD, median treatment duration 9.7 months

🩸 Treatment related anemia in 89% pooled and 84% at the 100 mg QD phase 3 dose, grade 3 or higher in 40% and 25%

🫁 Hypoxia in 16% and 13%, the other on target effect of HIF-2α inhibition

⚖️ Treatment related grade 3 or higher AEs in 49% pooled and 38% at the phase 3 dose, managed largely with dose modification: reduction in 24% and 22%, discontinuation in only 3% and 3%

⚠️ No grade 5 treatment related AEs

🧬 ESA use did not appear to negatively impact rPFS