Drug therapy for renal cell carcinoma in the elderly.

The incidence of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) peaks between 60 and 70 years, and > 25% of newly diagnosed patients are > 75 years. However, clinical trials for the evaluation of drug therapy for metastatic RCC (mRCC) have generally under-represented the actual proportion of elderly patients in the general population of mRCC patients; therefore, limited data remain available with respect to the efficacy as well as safety of drug therapy for elderly mRCC pa- tients. In this review, therefore, we attempted to summarize the current status of drug ther- apy for mRCC in the elderly based on both the available findings as well as our experience, and to discuss the future prospect of this therapy considering characteristics specific to eld- erly mRCC patients.