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Bone metastases are a common complication of advanced prostate cancer and while they are less common in non-prostate genitourinary (GU) malignances, they have been reported in up to 35 % of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma and bladder cancer. Furthermore, they may occur in more than two-thirds of those patients with bladder cancer who develop distant metastases. In the absence of bone-targeted therapies, approximately 50 % of all patients with metastatic bone disease from GU cancers experience at least one skeletal-related event within their lifetime. Zoledronic acid is a bisphosphonate that has been shown to delay or prevent the development of skeletal complications in patients with bone metastases and reduce bone pain in these patients. Furthermore, zoledronic acid has also demonstrated the ability to prevent osteopenia, which may occur with the prolonged use of some pharmacological interventions in patients with cancer.

Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common cancer in men. Many patients have prolonged survival and die of other diseases, so treatment decisions are often influenced by age and coexisting comorbidities. The main procedure to diagnose PC is an ultrasound-guided core needle biopsy, which is indicated when a digital rectal examination (DRE) finds nodularity or when PSA is >10 ng/ml, but is also recommended with PSA between 4.0 and 10 ng/ml. Depending on age, PSA, Gleason score and characteristics of the tumour, treatment options for localised PC are active surveillance, radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy. Androgen deprivation treatment (ADT) should be added to radiotherapy for men with intermediate- or high-risk PC. ADT is the current standard first-line treatment for metastatic PC. Castration-resistant PC is a heterogeneous entity. Several treatments such as sipuleucel-T, docetaxel-based chemotherapy, radium 223, cabazitaxel or abiraterone plus prednisone, zoledronic and denosumab, are useful for this situation.

The approval and use of molecular targeted agents for the first-line treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) has substantially improved the clinical outcome of patients. Although eventually all patients progress, hopes have been renewed with the approval of everolimus for patients who progress on or after treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors. In order to improve the prognosis for these patients, it is imperative to understand the reasons why patients with mRCC fail on first-line treatment. Currently, progression is assessed on the basis of the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors, but it is known that targeted agents tend to cause disease stabilization rather than a significant decrease in tumor mass. Therefore, it may be time to evaluate the need to incorporate additional diagnostic methods in the assessment of disease response. Equally important is the study of the factors that determine the success or failure of second-line therapy in order to increase the chances of delivering the most effective and personalized therapy possible. In this article, we review the evidence related to the evaluation of patients with mRCC who fail on first-line treatment with targeted agents, including the systems to assess response and progression, the prognostic factors, the prognostic models that have been created based on these factors, and what is known about predictive biomarkers of disease outcome.

The speed at which targeted therapies are being developed and incorporated into the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is surprising. After decades in which the only systemic treatment options available for advanced disease were interleukin-2 and interferon-alpha, in the last decade, six new targeted therapies have emerged showing meaningful clinical benefits to patients with advanced RCC through phase III trials. Recently, the Spanish Oncology Genitourinary Group issued its first public statement of recommendations for the optimal management of advanced RCC. However, most pivotal phase III trials on which these recommendations were based have been updated and/or fully reported. Moreover, a new multikinase inhibitor, pazopanib, has emerged with good quality clinical data. In this report, we review in depth the latest phase III data of targeted therapies for advanced RCC and update our recommendations. Furthermore, we hypothesize about the best environment for patients with advanced RCC to receive cancer therapy.

There has recently been a marked trend to increasing dose intensity in cancer chemotherapy, with or without peripheral blood stem-cell support, which has been associated with a higher frequency of nausea and vomiting. Antiemetic treatment in this setting has not been extensively analysed. From October 1995 to January 1997, prevention of emesis with granisetron 3 mg/12 h i.v., dexamethasone 12 mg/24 h i.v., haloperidol 0.5 mg/12 h p.o., and loracepam I mg/24 h p.o. was instituted in 30 breast cancer patients treated with high-dose chemotherapy (a 4-day intravenous continuous infusion of cyclophosphamide 1500 mg/m2 per day, thio-TEPA 125 mg/m2 per day and carboplatin 200 mg/m2 per day).A total of 30% of the patients (9/30) obtained complete or major protection on the 4 days of chemotherapy treatment (96.7% (29/30) on day 1, 86.7% (26/30) on day 2, 70% (21/30) on day 3, and 50% (15/30) on day 4). On the days following chemotherapy, 46.7% (14/30) presented fewer than two emetic episodes on day 5, 70% (21/30) on day 6, 83.4% (25/30) on day 7 and, 93.3% (28/30) on day 8. This energic antiemetic combination treatment has hardly any effect in the prevention of emesis, providing complete or major protection of 30% for the 4 days of chemotherapy treatment. Further investigation aimed at improving antiemetic treatment results is necessary.