In a survey on 296 patients with various forms of cancer, Topalian et al. concluded that antibodies against PD-1 induced objectively measurable responses in 20-25 % of patients with non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma, or renal-cell cancer (Thompson et al., 2004; Topalian et al., 2012). Here, PDCD1 is linked to renal cell adenocarcinoma.