Insights into paclitaxel-containing therapy for recurrent Wilms tumor

Paclitaxel-containing regimens for patients with recurrent Wilms tumor show promising results in a new multi-institutional retrospective study published in Pediatric Blood and Cancer.

“These findings provide an additional treatment option for pediatric oncologists caring for patients with recurrent Wilms tumor and merit prospective evaluations of paclitaxel-based regimens,” says Jeffrey Dome, MD, PhD, senior vice president of the Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s National Hospital and corresponding author of the study.

The big picture

The study analyzed 28 patients with recurrent or treatment refractory Wilms tumor from 12 institutions who were treated with paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel. Out of 26 patients with measurable disease, 42.3% of patients demonstrated a partial response and 15.3% demonstrated stable disease for a clinical benefit rate of 57.6%. Two patients treated adjuvantly without measurable disease were without progression for 12 and 16 months.

Moving the field forward

Over the last two decades, heavily pre-treated patients with Wilms tumor have seen few advances in available therapies. A review of 257 patients with recurrent Wilms tumor who enrolled in 79 phase 1 and 2 studies showed objective responses in only 8.5% of patients. Therefore, the response rate observed in this study is noteworthy. The authors note that the strength of this study is the large case series of a rare patient population, which provides a robust dataset of paclitaxel treatment in patients with refractory or recurrent Wilms tumor.

“Our initial observation that paclitaxel-containing regimens showed meaningful activity in several of our patients here at Children’s National prompted us to reach out to colleagues at other leading institutions,” said Dr. Dome. “That collaboration ultimately enabled this multi-institutional effort.”

Additional authors from Children’s National include Amy Frantz, NP, CPNP-AC, and Alissa Groisser, MD.

You can read the full study, Anti-tumor activity of paclitaxel-containing regimens in recurrent/refractory Wilms tumor, in Pediatric Blood and Cancer.