In a second study, a once-a-day pill called Tykerb halted tumor growth in
about one-third of patients.
People with advanced liver cancer have very few options, says Andrew X. Zhu,
MD, PhD, director of liver cancer research at Massachusetts General Hospital
Cancer Center in Boston.
Nexavar is the only medication that's been shown to extend their lives, he
says. It was approved by the FDA in November after a large study showed people
with advanced liver cancer given Nexavar lived about three months longer than
those given a placebo: 10.7 months vs. 7.9 months.
Enter Sutent, which puts the brakes on the growth of tumor-feeding blood
vessels and deprives tumor cells of blood and nutrients needed for growth.
It is part of a class of drugs called tyrosine kinase inhibitors. It's
already approved to treat advanced kidney cancer and recalcitrant gastrointestinal stromal tumors
Sutent Halts Tumor Growth
The study involved 34 patients with advanced liver cancer. They took one
Sutent pill a day for four weeks. Then they took a drug holiday for two weeks
and repeated the cycle.
The findings were presented here at the annual meeting of the American
Association for Cancer research.
By 12 weeks after starting treatment, the tumor shrank in only one patient.
But 17 patients had stable disease -- "that is, tumor growth had stopped
and they were doing well clinically," Zhu says.
Patients lived an average of 10 months.
Importantly, molecular markers showed clear evidence that the drug was
associated with antitumor activity, Zhu says.
The treatment was safe, he adds. Common side effects included elevated liver
enzymes, low levels of certain blood cells, and fatigue.
Christopher Willett, MD, head of radiation oncology at Duke University in
Durham, N.C., tells WebMD that the findings are "preliminary, but
The fact that there was evidence of changes in molecular markers that signal
better outcome is particularly noteworthy, Willett says.