ECCO 2017 | Managing side effects of cabozantinib treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma

Laurence Albiges, MD, PhD, from the Gustave Roussy Institute, Villejuif, France discusses the safety of cabozantinib treatment in metastatic renal cell carcinoma at the European Cancer Congress of the European Cancer Organisation (ECCO) 2017 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Cabozantinib is a potent VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), and is used for second-line or later treatment in patients in whom prior VEGFR inhibitor treatment failed. Dr Albiges describes common side effects of cabozantinib treatment, which can include hypertension, hand-foot syndrome (acral erythema), diarrhea, and fatigue. Management of these will often require a dose reduction, with 2 out of 3 patients in the Phase III METEOR trial of cabozantinib needing a dose reduction (NCT01865747). However, she argues that the positive effect of cabozantinib on overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) speak for its use as a second-line treatment in metastatic renal cell carcinoma.