Therapeutic challenges in renal cell carcinoma.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a malignancy that in advanced disease, is highly resistant to systemic therapies. Elucidation of the angiogenesis pathways and their intrinsic signaling interactions with the genetic and metabolic disturbances within renal cell carcinoma variants has ushered in the era of "targeted therapies". Advanced surgical interventions and novel drugs targeting VEGF and mTOR, have improved patient survival and prolonged clinically stable-disease states. This review discusses the current understanding of diagnostic challenges and the mechanism-based clinical evidence on therapeutic management of advanced RCC.