University of Chicago Researchers Instrumental in Developing New Kidney Cancer Drug
University of Chicago cancer researchers have successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of sorafenib for treating advanced kidney cancer, one of the most aggressive malignancies.
On Tuesday, December 21, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved sorafenib (to be marketed under the brand name Nexavar). If it were not for the innovative phase-II trial of this drug, which was designed and led by University of Chicago researchers, the drug would probably have been abandoned long ago.
Although sorafenib was designed to treat patients with colon cancer, it was not effective in those patients. The phase-II trial revealed that it was quite effective against kidney cancer. Until now, the standard therapy for renal cancer had only very modest benefit and could be extremely toxic. The phase-II trial of sorafenib suggested that the drug dramatically inhibits tumor growth in most patients with kidney cancer.
The phase-II trial began more than three years ago. The data from this phase, generated in large part at the University of Chicago, led to an international phase-III trial that has now demonstrated that sorafenib improves survival of patients with metastatic kidney cancer.
Sorafenib is only one example of hundreds of breakthrough therapies for cancer pioneered at the University of Chicago Hospitals.
- Cancer Care
- Cancer Research Center
- Mark J. Ratain, MD, designed the study and served as principal investigator of the phase-II trial
- Walter M. Stadler, MD, served as Chicago's principal investigator of the phase-III trial
- Kidney Cancer: Section of Urology
