Onkologie. 2018:12(2):83-86 | DOI: 10.36290/xon.2018.017

The authors’ own experience with axitinib in treating metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Igor Richter^{1, 2}, Josef Dvořák², Vladimír Šámal³, Věra Hejzlarová¹, Jiří Bartoš¹

¹ Onkologické oddělení, Krajská nemocnice Liberec, a.s., Liberec

² Onkologická klinika 1. LF UK a Thomayerovy nemocnice, Praha

³ Urologické oddělení, Krajská nemocnice Liberec, a.s., Liberec

Background and objective: Metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) typically exhibits resistance to conventional chemotherapy. Sincethe year 2000, there has been a more profound understanding of the biology of renal carcinoma and advancement in targeted therapy.Axitinib is one of the more recent agents for the second-line therapy of mRCC classified as selective inhibitors of vascular endothelialgrowth factor receptor tyrosine kinase. The aim of the article is to present our own experience with this agent in the clinical practice.

Patients and methods: From April 2014 to July 2017, a total of 17 mRCC patients (13 males, 4 females) were treated with axitinib.All patients had been pretreated with sunitinib in the first line. Axitinib was administered at a dose of 10 mg/day. The treatmentresponse was assessed using the RECIST 1.1 criteria. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were defined aspart of statistical evaluation. OS and PFS were calculated using the Kaplan–Meier (KM) analysis. Also analysed was the effect offactors (duration of previous treatment with sunitinib, general condition according to ECOG scale, primary generalization, effectof treatment toxicity) on treatment outcomes according to the KM analysis using the log-rank test.

Results: Grade 3/4 toxicity occurred in 47.1 % of the cases and it involved solely non-haematological adverse effects. The medianPFS was 10.5 months (95 % CI 3.5–13.8). The median OS was 10.63 months (95 % CI 6.07–28.43). When evaluating the effect of theindividual factors on PFS and OS, we observed a statistically significant prolonging of PFS in patients who had arterial hypertension(14.9 versus 9.6 months, p = 0.048, Figure 3).

Conclusion: Our analysis demonstrated a good efficacy and manageable adverse effects in patients with metastatic renal cellcarcinoma treated with axitinib at our centre.

Keywords: renal carcinoma, targeted therapy, axitinib, treatment toxicity, overall survival and progression-free survival

Published: April 1, 2018  Show citation