A paper published in The Oncologist last month analysed real-world data to further evaluate the effectiveness of first-line sunitinib in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) with favourable, intermediate or poor risk disease according to the International mRCC Database Consortium (IMDC) risk criteria.

The study included 1769 patients; 318 (18.0%) had favourable risk, 1031 (58.3%) had intermediate risk, and 420 (23.7%) had poor risk disease. The median time to discontinuation of treatment was 15.0 months in patients with favourable-risk disease and 4.2 months in those with poor-risk disease. The median overall survival was 52.1 months in favourable-risk patients versus 9.8 months in poor-risk patients. In the intermediate-risk group, overall survival was 35.1 months for those with one risk factor and 21.9 months for those with two risk factors.

This study provided real-world data on the first-line treatment of mRCC with sunitinib. It is notable that patients with favourable-risk disease had a median overall survival of 52.1 months. This represents a new benchmark in outcomes for clear cell mRCC. Furthermore, the prognosis for patients with intermediate-risk disease is based on the presence of one or two risk factors, which warrants further investigation.

Read more in The Oncologist here