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Aveo Announces Kidney Cancer Drug Tivozanib Meets Late-Stage Goal

January 4, 2012
“The drug helped patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma live for 11.9 months without their disease progressing in a late-stage study, compared with 9.1 months for those on Nexavar [sorafenib].”

December 28, 2011
Reuters (12/29, Pittman) reports a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggesting that people who eat high amounts of red, grilled, or barbequed meat may be at higher risk of kidney cancer. In a study of 500,000 US adults, it was found that eating the most red meat was linked with papillary cancers, but not clear-cell kidney cancers. Participants who ate high amounts of well-done grilled and barbecued meat likewise had an increased risk of kidney cancer. Researchers said the reason for the association is unclear and emphasized that the data do not prove causation.

ICUD/EAU consensus statement on mRCC

December 8, 2011
The International Consultation on Urological Diseases and the European Association of Urology have published a consensus statement on the management of mRCC.

Macrocytosis with sunitinib: Canadian data

Wednesday, May 26, 2010
From: Renal Adenocarcinoma Digest (RADAR)

A Canadian retrospective single-centre review of advanced RCC patients reports that macrocytosis occurred in 21 of 43 patients (48.8%) during sunitinib treatment (Price et al. Curr Oncol 2010; 17: 30-33; free full text here). Macrocytosis was defined as an increase in RBC mean corpuscular volume (MCV) > upper limit of normal (ULN).

Patients received sunitinib for a median of 5 cycles (30 weeks); 79% received >3 cycles. Macrocytosis occurred after a median of 3 cycles (17 weeks) of sunitinib and was not observed in the 9 patients who received < 2 cycles of sunitinib. Among the 22 patients who did not develop macrocytosis, there was a trend to increasing MCV with sunitinib, although 3 patients had received RBC transfusions and/or iron supplementation that could have contributed to an increase in MCV.

Nine of 21 patients (42.8%) had anemia when macrocytosis was detected, while another 9 (42.8%) subsequently developed anemia.

Other causes of macrocytosis (medications, vitamin B12 or folate deficiency, comorbidities) did not appear to contribute to the high incidence of macrocytosis.

There have been several previous reports of sunitinib-associated macrocytosis (Schallier et al. Anticancer Res 2009; 29: 5225-5228; www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20044640. Rini et al. Cancer 2008; 113: 1309-1314; free full text here. Billemont et al. N Engl J Med 2007; 357: 1351-1352; no abstract available. Gillessen et al. N Engl J Med 2007; 356: 2330-2331; no abstract available). The mechanisms by which macrocytosis occurs in patients treated with sunitinib or imatinib have not been determined.

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