[Study on the usage, effectiveness, and toxicity associated to treatment with sorafenib]

To know the usage, effectiveness, and toxicity associa ted to Sorafenib treatment in cancer patients at a general hospital.

Observational, retrospective, and longitudinal study on the usage, effectiveness and toxicity associated to Sorafenib. Cancer patients at a general university hospital initiating treatment with Sorafenib were included between January of 2007 and December of 2010, with an extended follow-up period up to June of 2012.

31 patients started the treatment (mean age 61.6 years; 67.7% males). 83.87% received a monotherapy regimen with fixed doses of 400 mg b.i.d., whereas 5 patients required dose adjustment due to poor gastrointestinal tolerance and skin toxicity. At the end of the study, 3 patients were still alive and kept on receiving the treatment, 27 withdrew from the therapy, and 1 pa - tient was lost to follow-up. The pathologies treated with Sorafenib were hepatocarcinoma (38.7%), advanced renal cancer (35.5%), melanoma (9.7%), thyroid cancer (12.9%), and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (3.2%). The median overall survival was 524 days for hepatocarcinoma and 217 days for renal cancer. Adverse reactions with Sorafenib were observed in 41.9% of the patients.

This study reveals that Sorafenib is effective in patients with hepatocarcinoma and renal cancer, essentially depending on the baseline clinical status of the patients. Sorafenib may be associated with the occurrence of adverse events, mainly gastrointestinal and cutaneous, requiring dose adjustment and treatment withdrawal in some cases.