According to a recent report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers are testing an experimental drug they hope will lead to improved outcomes for patients with metastatic kidney cancer compared to currently available medicinal therapies.

The experimental drug, cabozantinib, was compared to the standards drug sunitinib for the treatment of metastatic kidney cancer in a randomized clinical trial conducted at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Lead by Toni K. Choueiri, MD, director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber, the clinical trial included 157 participants. Some 81 percent of participants were labeled at intermediate risk and 19 percent at poor risk, while 36 percent of all the participants had cancer that had spread to the bone.

Results concluded the following:

• Cabozantinib participants had a 20 percent lower risk of death.
• The period of progression-free survival was a median of 8.2 months in cabozantinib, compared to 5.6 months with sunitinib.
• Cabozantinib participants had a 34 percent reduction in cancer progression and death compare to sunitinib.
• The overall response rate for cabozantinib participants was 46 percent, a much righter rate than the 18 percent response for sunitinib users.

"These results are very relevant to our practice and our kidney cancer patients—they may change the standard," said Choueiri. "The results also demonstrate that studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute can accrue rapidly and yield highly relevant results to the field."