The clinical experience of the novel drug temsirolimus on eight patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma and who were refractory to other forms of treatment is reported. Although none of the patients showed complete or partial response, three patients had stable disease. One patient was prematurely withdrawn due to pneumonitis. Five patients died during the period of observation of twenty months and the median survival time from start of treatment was ten months. Three patients showed no evidence of adverse events (AE). Five patients showed dyslipidemia and two had pneumonitis for which, the drug had to be withdrawn in one of them. None had significant leucopenia. We conclude that temsirolimus has activity even in heavily pretreated patients in advanced renal cell carcinoma and in addition, has the benefits of ease of administration and good tolerability.
Clear-cell metastatic renal cell carcinoma