Results from two international phase 3 trials of the small-molecule kinase inhibitors sorafenib and sunitinib in patients with renal-cell carcinoma show that both of these drugs can prolong progression-free survival.

Robert Motzer and colleagues randomized 750 patients with previously untreated, metastatic renal-cell carcinoma to either sunitinib or interferon-α, a standard therapy. Sunitinib prolonged median progression-free survival compared with interferon-α (11 versus 5 months), and sunitinib was associated with a higher objective response rate, as assessed by blinded review of tumour imaging. The benefits of sunitinib were seen across all prognostic risk categories, although the poor-risk group was small. There was no significant difference in overall survival between the sunitinib and interferon-α groups, but the final survival results have not yet been reported.

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