Conditions: Carcinoma, Renal Cell
Keywords: Kidney cancer, Sorafenib, Dose escalation, No previous treatment
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 83
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Sorafenib is a new drug, which is approved under the brand name Nexavar for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer. It is also currently being tested in various other cancers. Sorafenib works by stopping the development of new cancer cells and new blood vessels. By stopping the growth of new blood vessels around a tumor, it is believed that sorafenib prevents the growth of kidney cancer tumors.

This is an "open-label" study which means that the patient, the doctor and Bayer Healthcare will know what tablets the patient is taking. All patients in this study will receive sorafenib tablets. Sorafenib is taken orally as a tablet (two tablets are taken twice a day). Treatment with sorafenib will continue until the patient's tumor grows larger or spreads further or if the patient has intolerable side effects. The dose of sorafenib that the patient will receive in the study will increase at certain points during the patient's treatment, as long as the patient is not experiencing side effects and the patient's tumor has not grown.

Detailed description:
Issues on Outcome Measure "Safety and tolerability" will be addressed in the Adverse Events section.

Arms:
arm 1: Intrapatient dose escalation of sorafenib from 400 mg orally twice daily (bid) for the first cycle, 600 mg bid for the second cycle and 800 mg bid until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity or withdrawal of consent. Dose reductions due to toxicities were allowed.

Interventions: intervention 1: Sorafenib (Nexavar, BAY43-9006)
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: The initial dose of sorafenib will be 400 mg bid administered orally, on a continuous basis. A treatment cycle is considered to be 28 days. Intrapatient dose escalation will occur according to the following schedule, providing no grade 3 or 4 toxicities are observed (except for alopecia, nausea and vomiting); Day 1-28 400 mg bid, Day 29-56 600 mg bid, Day 57 onwards 800 mg bid. Subjects will continue on treatment until progression, unacceptable toxicity, subject withdraws consent or the decision is taken to stop the study following the analysis of response rates.

Protocol document: