Kidney Cancer Patients Treated With Sunitinib Report Lower Severity of Symptoms Compared With Interferon-Alfa

Publication
Article
OncologyONCOLOGY Vol 22 No 10
Volume 22
Issue 10

Patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) treated with single-agent, oral sunitinib malate (Sutent) reported experiencing significantly lower severity of symptoms like bone pain and breathlessness, among others, than patients treated with interferon-alfa.

Patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) treated with single-agent, oral sunitinib malate (Sutent) reported experiencing significantly lower severity of symptoms like bone pain and breathlessness, among others, than patients treated with interferon-alfa. This secondary analysis was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology (26:3763-3769, 2008).

These data are from a large, randomized, pivotal phase III trial that previously demonstrated that sunitinib more than doubled progression-free survival vs interferon-alfa.

“Symptoms associated with a devastating and debilitating illness like kidney cancer, including lack of energy, weight loss, fever, and others, often have a significant effect on patients’ quality of life,” said Dr. David Cella, Davis Family Chair of outcomes research and executive director, Center on Outcomes, Research and Education, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and lead investigator on this analysis. “Therefore, patients’ perceptions of their symptoms are an important and meaningful measure of treatment impact.”

About the Study

In this study, 750 previously untreated patients with advanced RCC were randomized to receive either sunitinib (50 mg/d on a 4-weeks-on, 2-weeks-off schedule) or interferon-alfa (9 mU three times per week). Patients were asked to complete several validated questionnaires to measure their health-related quality of life, a secondary endpoint of the trial. Questionnaires were completed on days 1 and 28 of each 42-day treatment cycle and at the end of treatment or withdrawal from the study.

The Disease-Related Symptoms (DRS) subscale of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy–Kidney Symptom Index (FKSI) was prespecified as the primary quality-of-life endpoint in the study and was intended to measure the impact of sunitinib on disease-related symptoms experienced by patients.

Results showed that for patients receiving sunitinib, scores on the FKSI-DRS were better at each cycle than for those in the interferon-alfa group, indicating patients reported experiencing lower severity of symptoms (lack of energy, weight loss, bone pain, fatigue, breathlessness, coughing, and fever) than patients treated with interferon-alfa. Patient-reported outcomes from other validated scales used to measure quality of life in this study also favored sunitinib vs interferon-alfa.

Newsletter

Stay up to date on recent advances in the multidisciplinary approach to cancer.

Recent Videos
Success with the 177Lu-PSMA-617 radioligand therapy would be transformative for the clear cell renal cell carcinoma treatment landscape.
An ongoing phase 1 trial seeks to prove XmAb819 as an effective treatment and ENPP3 as a plausible target in patients with relapsed or refractory RCC.
“The therapy is designed to prevent both CAR T-cell inactivation and to restore the anti-tumor immunity of the white blood cells that have gotten through the tumor,” said Marasco, MD, PhD.
Ongoing studies aim to combine base immunotherapy regimens with novel agents to potentially improve outcomes among patients with kidney cancer.
Investigators have found a way to reduce liver and biliary toxicity when targeting the molecule CAIX in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.
Neoantigen-targeting vaccines resulted in an absence of recurrence in 9 patients with high-risk kidney cancer, according to David A. Braun, MD, PhD.
The Kidney Cancer Research Consortium may allow collaborators to form more mechanistic and scientifically driven efforts in the field.
Wayne A. Marasco, MD, PhD, stated that by targeting 2 molecules instead of 1, higher levels of tumor cell killing can be achieved in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.
Related Content