Michael Szarek, PhD, on Research Areas of Focus for Tivozanib in RCC

In an interview with CancerNetwork®, Michael Szarek, PhD, of SUNY Downstate Medical Center, highlighted areas of research within renal cell carcinoma (RCC) which he believes require further study.

Transcription:

For front-line, there’s still room for improvement. There was a study called TIVO-1 [NCT01030783], the first pivotal trial of tivozanib [Fotivda] in renal cell carcinoma, which had some results that were a bit difficult to understand. In that study, tivozanib showed a benefit to [progression-free survival], but there actually seem to be a trend against it in survival. And the sponsors came up with some reasons for why that potentially happened; there was crossover once patients progressed, and so that’s 1 plausible explanation. But I think in frontline metastatic disease, there’s still a lot of room for advancement there. It remains to be seen if tivozanib will be rechallenged in that particular line or not.