Sunitinib ( Sutent ) is more effective than the current standard cytokine treatment given as an initial therapy for patients with advanced kidney cancer, also known as metastatic renal cell carcinoma ( mRCC ).

" Sunitinib has shown more activity as a single agent against advanced kidney cancer than any other drug I've studied in the past 15 years," said the study's lead author Robert J. Motzer, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center ( MSKCC ).

Interferon-alpha ( IFN-alpha ) is one of the standard treatments for advanced kidney cancer, however only about 15 percent of patients respond to this immunotherapy.
Sunitinib targets receptors on kidney cancer cells that may play a role in tumor growth and the development of blood vessels that feed a tumor.

Previous clinical trials, also led by Motzer, showed that Sunitinib caused some renal cell cancers to shrink, but this study is the first to demonstrate its effectiveness as a first-line therapy compared with standard cytokine therapy with Interferon-alpha.

The current randomized trial included 750 patients over the age of 60, half of whom were treated with a six-week cycle of Sunitinib and half of whom were treated with a six-week cycle of the current treatment standard, IFN-alpha.
The primary endpoint of the trial was a comparison of progression-free survival between Sunitinib and Interferon-alpha as assessed by independent third-party review.
The median progression-free survival for treatment with Sunitinib was 11 months, compared with 5 months following treatment with Interferon-alpha. This outcome was statistically significant and met the primary question asked by investigators in the trial.
In addition, 31 percent of the patients in the Sunitinib arm of the study experienced substantial tumor shrinkage compared with 6 percent of the patients receiving the standard treatment.

Source: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 2006


XagenaMedicine2006