Interleukin-2 in the treatment of unresectable or metastatic renal cell cancer: a systematic review and practice guideline
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: We performed a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to assess the efficacy of interleukin-2 (IL-2) for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). METHODS: We searched the literature to identify RCTs or meta-analyses of RCTs comparing treatment regimens with IL-2 to those without. Outcomes of interest included overall or progression-free survival, response rate, toxicity and quality of life. RESULTS: We identified 36 RCTs, and 6 met the eligibility criteria (1098 patients). We studied IL-2 alone and in combination with other agents, including interferon-alpha (IFN-a), 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), and 13-cis-retinoic acid or tamoxifen. No trials comparing high-dose IL-2 to non-IL-2 regimens were identified. A meta-analysis of 1-year mortality data from the 6 trials did not show a difference between IL-2-based regimens and non-IL-2 controls. Two of the 6 trials detected statistically significant longer survival with IL-2 combined with IFN-a and 5-FU. Of the 4 trials that assessed progression-free survival, 3 reported significantly longer progression-free intervals with IL-2-based regimens. Five trials reported response rates; pooling the rates from these trials gave an overall weighted response rate of 13.3% (range 9%-39%) and 5.3% (range 0%-20%) for IL-2-containing regimens and non-IL-2 regimens, respectively. IL-2-based regimens were more toxic than were non-IL-2 controls; the most frequently reported grade 3-4 toxicities were hypotension (range 6%-68%), fever (2%-56%), nausea or vomiting or both (6%-34%), diarrhea (1%-28%) and cardiac toxicity (11%-25%). None of the trials reported health-related quality-of-life data. CONCLUSION: Non-high-dose IL-2 containing regimens do not provide superior treatment efficacy over non-IL-2-based regimens, with added toxicity, and therefore should not be used as standard treatment for patients with unresectable or metastatic RCC. High-dose IL-2 should only be used by experienced physicians in the context of a clinical trial or investigative setting.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.026 | 0.073 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.009 | 0.010 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.011 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".