Although immuno-oncology combination
therapy with
nivolumab plus
ipilimumab has recently shown a notable antitumor effect for first-line metastatic
renal cell carcinoma, the eradication of the disease is extremely rare. Moreover, conventional treatments for
renal cell carcinoma show little efficacy in the case of a poor prognostic pathological feature of sarcomatoid dedifferentiation. We report a case of pathological eradication of recurrent metastatic
renal cell carcinoma with sarcomatoid component after laparoscopic radical
nephrectomy by
nivolumab plus
ipilimumab combination
therapy. A 57-year-old male patient received four cycles of
nivolumab plus
ipilimumab and thirty cycles of
nivolumab for local recurrence and liver
metastasis after laparoscopic radical
nephrectomy for T3a
renal cell carcinoma with sarcomatoid component. He underwent partial
hepatectomy for the remaining small hepatic lesion after immuno-oncology
therapy. Pathology of the surgical specimen showed no viable
cancer cells. The patient was alive with no evidence of disease a year after partial
hepatectomy. Our case encourages clinicians to achieve a second cure for patients with recurrent metastatic
renal cell carcinoma after radical
nephrectomy even though the resected kidney pathology showed sarcomatoid component.