Cost-effectiveness of sunitinib in metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Sunitinib is one of the first targeted treatments for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) and is currently considered as the standard of care for most of the mRCC patients in the first-line setting. The introduction of targeted treatments has, in the past few years, led to improvements in disease management and survival of these patients, however, with increasing cost. Cost-effectiveness of sunitinib has been assessed on several occasions and a systematic literature search was conducted to find all published research articles as well as all research abstracts presented in various congresses. This article presents an overview of the currently existing cost-effectiveness studies of sunitinib in mRCC, along with the main results and the utilized methodology. In most of the economic evaluations sunitinib has been deemed to be a cost-effective treatment option compared with other treatments.

Sunitinib (SUTENT) for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Kidney cancer accounts for approximately 2% of new cancers and conventional treatment with nephrectomy followed by IL-2 or IFN-alpha treatment does not provide long-term survival benefit in many patients. Increased understanding of the pathophysiology of renal cell carcinoma has prompted the development of targeted therapies for patients with this disease, including sunitinib. This paper reviews the most recent efficacy and safety data for sunitinib, as well as currently ongoing and planned studies for this receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Results from a large-scale, long-term, Phase III trial have established sunitinib as the standard of care for first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, and it is now the reference standard against which other therapies for this cancer should be evaluated.