Scientists found that 40 per cent of patients treated with nivolumab and ipilimumab experienced a significant reduction in the size of their tumours.
In a tenth of these patients the cancer appeared to have vanished. There was no detectable sign of disease.
The CheckMate -016 study was an early Phase I trial chiefly designed to investigate doses and side effects.
"There remains a significant unmet need for treatment options that offer ongoing responses and increase survival for patients with renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer," said Dr Hans Hammers, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre in the US.
"The results from CheckMate -016 are encouraging, and warrant further study, as they show with nearly two years of follow-up, 40.4 per cent of patients in each nivolumab plus ipilimumab combination arm responded to the regimen, with the majority of responses occurring early and within the first few months of treatment."
The findings were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology cancer meeting in Copenhagen.
The same combination of drugs has already been approved for UK patients with advanced melanoma skin cancer.
