Below the Belt Award

More than 4000 people in Australia are diagnosed with kidney cancer each year. While anti-cancer medications such as oral tyrosine kinase inhibitors and intravenous immunotherapy have prolonged lives for patients with metastatic kidney cancer (cancer that has spread from the kidney to another part of the body), it is difficult for doctors to work out which patients will respond to which drug or drug combination. More research is needed to identify individual patient factors (biomarkers) that may provide additional information to determine the best treatment for patients with metastatic kidney cancer. In some cancers, positron emission tomography or PET scans are better at identifying cancer deposits than computerised tomography (CT) and are commonly used. In some hospitals in Australia, PET scans are already being used to inform the management of patients with kidney cancer, but this approach is not well studied. This research project aims to find out if PET scans can provide doctors with more information in selecting the best treatment for patients with metastatic kidney cancer. Using information from this study, we will develop a follow-up study using PET scans to help choose between available therapies for patients to achieve the best outcomes.