
Around 1 in 5 people diagnosed with cancer in the UK take part in a clinical trial.
This trial looked at pazopanib before surgery for kidney cancer that had spread elsewhere in the body. It was for people:
If possible, it is usual to have surgery to remove the kidney (a nephrectomy).
This is usually followed by a such as pazopanib. This is a type of cancer growth blocker called a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI for short).
TKIs block tyrosine kinase, which is a chemical messenger that sends messages telling cells to divide and grow. Blocking the effect of tyrosine kinase might stop cancer cells growing.
When this trial was done, doctors didn’t know if having surgery to remove the kidney helped people with advanced cancer in the long term. It delays starting treatment for cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. So in this trial, the researchers wanted to find out if there was a benefit to starting pazopanib before surgery.
The aims of the trial were to find out:
The trial team found having pazopanib before surgery was safe and might be a useful treatment for some people with advanced kidney cancer.
104 people took part in this study. The average age was 64. The plan was that people would have:
The trial team checked the results for 100 people before surgery. They looked at how well treatment worked and found:
Of the 104 people in the trial, 63 had surgery. For those who didn’t, the 3 most common reasons were:
Having pazopanib before surgery seemed to increase length of time it took for wounds to heal after surgery.
The trial team looked at risk scores for 101 people. These included factors such as:
Doctors used this information to try and work out how well people would do (their outcome). Of the people who took part:
The study team found that having pazopanib before surgery helped people with intermediate risk cancer but those in the poor risk group had poor outcomes.
The trial team looked at how long before the cancer started to grow again after surgery. This is called progression free survival. This was on average just over 7 months.
They also looked at how long people lived after surgery. This is called overall survival. This was on average just under 23 months.
The more serious side effects of pazopanib included:
The trial team concluded that having pazopanib before surgery was safe and possible. It helped some people with intermediate risk factors and most of them were able to have surgery as planned.
We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists () and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.
Please note: In order to join a trial you will need to discuss it with your doctor, unless otherwise specified.
Prof Thomas Powles
Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC)
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
Queen Mary University of London
Freephone 0808 800 4040
Around 1 in 5 people diagnosed with cancer in the UK take part in a clinical trial.