Dr. Lara on the Role of Sunitinib for Renal Cell Carcinoma

Primo N. Lara, MD, associate director for translational research, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the role of sunitinib (Sutent) for patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Sunitinib was shown in the S-TRAC trial to modestly improve disease-free survival for patients with completely resected RCC, explains Lara. Sunitinib as an adjuvant therapy has considerable toxicities that need to be managed.

According to Lara, even though sunitinib did see an increase in disease-free survival it had no clear benefit in terms of overall survival.