Image Courtesy of Novartis Pharameceuticals Corporation.

Link to official Afinitor website.


Among the most commonly used metastatic RCC meds are Sutent® (Sunitib) by Pfizer and Nexavar® by Bayer.
On January 26, 2006, the FDA approved Sunitinib which is marketed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer as Sutent, as a so called multi targeted receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), also commonly referred to as kidney cancer.

Sutent was also approved by the FDA for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) which made it the first drug being approved for two different indications at the same time.
Other metastatic RCC meds that received FDA approval include sorafenib (Nexavar), bevacizumab (Avastin), everolimus (Afinitor), interleukin-2 (Proleukin) and temsirolimus (Torisel).

Renal Cell Carcinoma does generally not respond well to chemotherapy or radiation. Usually, either the affected part of the kidney or the entire organ has to be removed through a procedure called nephrectomy. For example, when I got diagnosed with kidney cancer it was determined that my left kidney could not be saved and therefore it had to be removed laparoscopically.

In order to find out more your metastatic RCC meds and treatment options, you need to discuss your specific situation with an Oncologist. Ideally, get at least two opinions, if not three. Also, I strongly encourage you to reach out to other patients to see how they tolerated their respective metastatic RCC medication and what potential side effects they had to deal with.

I was lucky enough that my kidney cancer had not yet spread, so neither chemotherapy nor radiation was necessary. From my perspective, I can only recommend that you try to maintain a healthy lifestyle and eat the right things. This has nothing to do per se with alternative cancer treatment options – all conventional kidney cancer oncologist will attest to the fact that strengthening your immune system is of outmost importance and can be highly beneficial in the treatment of RCC.