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https://youtube.com/shorts/xkpMPUTmw44?feature=share The Kidney Cancer Association (KCA) welcomes the Wilms Cancer Foundation (WCF) as its newest Affiliate Partner organization. WCF is a charitable organization that supports and represents the needs of children, families & healthcare organizations affected by childhood kidney cancer internationally. “The WCF is delighted to join the KCA Affiliate Program and looks forward to working closely with them to…

What makes some cancers metastasize and spread or become resistant to treatment? Researchers at MD Anderson developed a model to predict when renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the most common type of kidney cancer, might become metastatic and stop responding to treatment based on the loss of a specific cluster of genes in the cancer cell chromosomes. The study was published…

Claudia Tatum joined the KCA's Patient & Caregiver Advisory Council in 2023. She is based in Oklahoma. What motivated you to get involved with the KCA’s PCAC? From the time I was diagnosed in Jan 2023, I began thinking about what the lesson learned would be from my Cancer Adventure. Then, how can I can best use the lesson to…

Annamaria Scaccia joined the KCA’s Patient & Caregiver Advisory Council (PCAC) in 2023. She is a frequent blog contributor for the KCA and collaborator on a number of special edition KCA newsletters. What motivated you to get involved with the KCA’s PCAC? https://www.kidneycancer.org/stories/bodybuilder/ I was motivated to get involved with the KCA’s PCAC because joining the council felt like a…

Matt McClain joined the KCA's Patient & Caregiver Advisory Council (PCAC) in 2023. What motivated you to get involved with the KCA’s PCAC? https://www.kidneycancer.org/stories/learned-how-to-be-his-own-advocate/ When I was newly diagnosed, I reached out to a few people who I knew had kidney cancer. Unlike me, none of them were stage IV, so while they were sympathetic, they were not able to…

This is a guest post by Michael Whitley, 46, who was diagnosed with stage 4 clear cell renal cell carcinoma in 2019. He is an engineer and lives in Huntsville, Alabama. Michael Whitley, left, driving home from Vanderbilt with his boyfriend, Michael Mueller, in July. Since my scan in November of 2022, I have had 3 more CT scans. The…

https://youtube.com/shorts/DyJx4CpcRYU?feature=share The Kidney Cancer Association (KCA) welcomes the Judy Nicholson Kidney Cancer Foundation (JNF) as the newest affiliate partner organization. Through the Affiliate Program, the KCA can provide expanded support networks for people impacted by kidney cancer, bolster collective grassroots advocacy efforts, and increase opportunities to offer kidney cancer education to the wider community. “This affiliation between the Judy Nicholson…

By D’Ann George, PhD, Medical Writer This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in June featured the first-ever symposium devoted to microbiome research in cancer. The “Role of the Microbiome in Immune CheckPoint Inhibitor Response and Resistance” session featured two speakers of particular interest to people with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).  Dr. Hedyeh Ebrahimi Mixed Phase 2 Results…

Below are some highlights from research presented at the 2023 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which took place in Chicago, Illinois from June 2-6. Cabozantinib plus nivolumab is a promising treatment for advanced papillary kidney cancer Dr. Chung-Han Lee, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and member of the KCA’s Medical…

Dr. Julia Stevens, PharmD, BCOP, is a Clinical Pharmacy Specialist in Ambulatory Oncology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She specializes in kidney cancer, prostate cancer, and melanoma. Her primary clinical responsibilities include educating patients and caregivers, monitoring and supporting those on oral therapies, minimizing the financial toxicity of treatment, and providing drug information and treatment recommendations…