Is sunitinib useful for patients with advanced kidney cancer?

Sunitinib is approved to treat metastatic renal cell carcinoma, which is often resistant to chemotherapy or radiation. Other treatment options in this setting include pazopanib, sorafenib, and bevacizumab. BeforeRTKs, metastatic disease could only be treated with the cytokines interferon alpha (IFNα) or interleukin-2. However, the effectiveness of these drugs is very low (5%-20%). In a phase III study, the median progression-free survival in the sunitinib group (11 months) was significantly longer than that in the interferon alpha group (5 months). In the secondary endpoint, 28% of patients in the sunitinib group had significant tumor shrinkage.