Negative Effect of Immediate Sunitinib Interruption on Survival in Patients With Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Treatment modification due to adverse events reduces the dose intensity in cancer treatment. The prognostic impact of sunitinib treatment interruption within the initial period of therapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) remains unknown.

We retrospectively evaluated 97 patients with mRCC treated with first-line sunitinib treatment. The patients were classified into two groups according to the presence of treatment interruption (TI) within the initial two cycles. The prognostic impact of TI was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test, and multivariate analyses using the Cox proportional hazard model.

Thirty-eight patients (39.2%) experienced an immediate TI. The median progression-free (PFS) and overall (OS) survival were significantly shorter in patients with a TI than in those without (PFS= 6.54 vs. 11.3 months, p=0.0246; OS=16.9 vs. 30.0 months, p=0.0420). Multivariate analyses for PFS and OS showed that TI was an independent factor predicting poorer PFS (hazard ratio(HR)=1.93, p=0.0141) and OS (HR=2.09, p=0.0102). In addition, the relative dose intensity within the initial two cycles was significantly lower in patients with a TI than in those without (52.7% vs. 75.0%, p<0.0001).

This study showed the significantly negative effect of immediate TI on survival of patients under sunitinib treatment for mRCC. Therefore, the careful monitoring of patient tolerability is required in order to maintain therapeutic efficacy in the early phase of sunitinib treatment.

In vivo (Athens, Greece). 0000 Jan [Epub]

Ryo Ishiyama, Hiroki Ishihara, Tsunenori Kondo, Toshio Takagi, Kazuhiko Yoshida, Junpei Iizuka, Hirohito Kobayashi, Masayoshi Okumi, Hideki Ishida, Kazunari Tanabe

Department of Urology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan., Department of Urology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan ., Department of Urology, Tokyo Women's Medical University Medical Center East, Tokyo, Japan.