Von Hippiel-Lindau (VHL) disease is a rare genetic disorder characterized by a variety of benign and malignant neoplastic growths arising in multiple different organ systems. About 60%-84% of patients develop hemangioblastomas, benign tumors comprised of newly formed blood vessels that often occur in the central nervous system (CNS) and retinas. Treatment options for this disease were limited before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of belzutifan, a HIF2α inhibitor. We present a case of a 25-year-old woman with VHL who underwent treatment with belzutifan over 18 months. It was noted that her CNS lesions decreased significantly in size over the course of her treatment, and she had minimal adverse effects. Her excellent and sustained therapeutic response to the treatment highlights the real-world clinical benefit of belzutifan and the possibility that this could play a crucial role in treating VHL by postponing or completely avoiding repeated surgical and radiotherapeutic intervention and their associated comorbidities.
Keywords: belzutifan; cerebellar hemangioblastoma; cns hemangioblastoma; hif-2 alpha inhibitor; hif2α; pheochromocytoma; renal cell carcinoma (rcc); targeted therapeutics; vhl-related syndrome; von hippel-lindau disease (vhl).
Copyright © 2024, Thalji et al.