Study of the Effectiveness and Safety of Cabozantinib Treatment in Patients With Advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) Under a Spanish Managed Access Program and Real-world Practice

RCC (Renal Cell Carcinoma) is the most common form of kidney cancer, accounting for 2-3% of all adult malignancies and for 90% of all kidney cancers. The incidence of RCC has steadily increased over the past two decades, showing a plateau in recent years. Many patients with RCC remain asymptomatic until late disease stages and other patients have disease at diagnosis (metastatic RCC or mRCC).

Recently, the tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) cabozantinib was approved as a first-line therapy for patients with advanced clear-cell RCC (ccRCC). Cabozantinib was initially approved for patients previously treated with antiangiogenic therapy based on the phase 3 METEOR study, which demonstrated a clinical benefit compared with everolimus.

Immunotherapy has been also developed in ccRCC.

The frontline treatment paradigm for ccRCC has evolved, particularly for intermediate-/poor-risk patients, with the recent addition of cabozantinib and nivolumab/ipilimumab (immunotherapy), but overall survival data are needed to understand their benefit-to-risk profiles compared with established therapies.

In October 2016, the Spanish Agency of medicines (AEMPS) granted the temporary Authorization for special use to Cabometyx® 20/40/60 mg within a Managed Access Program (MAP) for the treatment of advanced RCC in adults following prior VEGF-targeted therapy (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor targeted therapy). The MAP allows the possibility of using a medicinal product which is not yet commercially available or approved. By the end of the MAP period, on July 2017, 136 patients had been included by 61 centers who received at least one dose of Cabometyx® for the treatment of advanced RCC.

Since then, Cabometyx® 20/40/60 mg was made commercially available for the treatment of advanced RCC in adults following prior VEGF-targeted therapy. After the commercialization of Cabometyx® in July 2017 in Spain, the inclusion of new patients in the MAP was closed but those patients that were already included continued receiving Cabometyx® free of charge until clinical decision. In July 2018, the European Commission approved a new indication for adult patients previously untreated with intermediate or poor risk.

Based on this rationale, the aim of this study is to obtain safety and effectiveness information regarding the use of cabozantinib in a non-selected RCC population, both in patients that received this agent under the MAP or under routine clinical prescription (real-world [RW]).