3 'targeted' cancer drugs raise risk of fatal side effects
Treatment with three relatively new "targeted" cancer drugs has been linked to a slightly elevated chance of fatal side effects, according to a new analysis led by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. They added that the risk remains low, but should be taken into account by physicians and patients.
The incidence of fatal complications was 1.5 percent in patients who received any of the three drugs, which block the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) tyrosine kinase receptors in cancer cells, according to the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This is compared to a 0.7 percent incidence in patients given standard treatments or placebos.
The study looked at three drugs: sorafenib (Nexavar), sunitinib (Sutent), and pazopanib (Votrient). Sorafenib is approved to treat kidney and liver cancer, sunitinib to treat kidney cancer and gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST), and pazopanib to treat kidney cancer.
Read the whole article at ecancer.org
Reference
- Schutz, F.A., Je, Y., Richards, C.J., Choueiri, T.K. (2012). Meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials for the incidence and risk of treatment-related mortality in patients with cancer treated with vascular endothelial growth factor tyrosine kinase inhibitors Journal of Clinical Oncology DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2011.37.1195
Keywords: sorafenib, sunitinib, pazopanib, VEGF-tyrosine kinase inhibitors, targeted therapy
7. 2. 2012 ecancer.org
