Sutent to Nexavar......

Greetings all!  My father, who is 71, was diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma in January of this year with suspected metastases to the lung.

He had his kidney and the tumor removed on February 25 and on April 11 started 50MG of Sutent.  He appeared to tolerate the medication well but a routine blood test showed a drastically reduced platelet count. 

His oncologist is taking him off Sutent and most likely putting him on Nexavar.  Can anyone tell me how they compare in terms of efficacy and side effects?

Thanks!

Glenn

I found Nexavar to be easier to tolerate than Sutent, however not everyone will react the same to any given medication.

I believe it's a case of try it & see.

Bill

I was on Sutent for two years but had to keep reducing the dosage due to side effects.  Finally I started getting some growth in my lung tumors.  My doctor and I decided that the growth was probably due to the reduced Sutent dosage rather than drug failure so we switched to Nexavar.

 So far Nexavar has worked.  I have been able to tolerate the 800 mg per day recommended dosage with minimal side effects and the lung tumors have either remained the same or have shrunk in size.

 I'm switching Torisel when Nexavar finally quits working.

 Bob Stewart, Granger, Indiana

My wife was on Sutent for @ a year, w/ SEs causing reductions in dosage from 50 mg to 37.5 to 25, & progression after 3 cycles of the lesser dosage.  She is now on a clinical trial of Pazopinib, which is causing elevated blood pressure, which we are working on to see if she can remain on the trial.  If not, she will probably go on Afinitor (everolimus), which was recently approved by the FDA for seconary treatment after a primary treatment fails.

I was dx with stage 4 rcc at age 59 approximately 41 months ago.  I was on Nexavar 800 mg per day for one year and am currently in my 26th month on Sutent 50 mg ( 4 weeks on 2 weeks off).  My lung mets initially shrunk with Nexavar while my bone mets were unchanged.  After one year the lung mets were back at their original size and I switched to Sutent.  On Sutent my lung mets are currently approximately 5% of their original volume and my bone mets show some signs of healing.

The se from Nexavar were less seroius than those of Sutent.  On Nexavar, I had hand and foot blisters and callous which were painful as well as diarehia.  I took hydrocordone for the foot pain and the diarehia was reduced by diet changes especially eatting a lot of rice.  On Sutent, I have the same hand and foot condition as well as reduced thyroid, high blood pressure, skin rash, and acid reflux.  All are controlled with other meds.  On both drugs I have been able to stay active and do everything I could prior to rcc, except at a slower pace.