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  • Continuous remission of renal cell carcinoma with tumour thrombus after severe adverse events following short-term treatment with sunitinib

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Unexpected outcome (positive or negative) including adverse drug reactions
CASE REPORT
Continuous remission of renal cell carcinoma with tumour thrombus after severe adverse events following short-term treatment with sunitinib
  1. Akira Kazama,
  2. Akiyoshi Katagiri,
  3. Shoko Ishikawa,
  4. Takaki Mizusawa
  1. Department of Urology, Niigata Prefectural Central Hospital, Joetsu, Niigata, Japan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Akira Kazama, a-kazama{at}med.niigata-u.ac.jp

Summary

A 64-year-old Japanese man with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and tumour thrombus in the inferior vena cava was treated with sunitinib. Two weeks after treatment, he was hospitalised for disturbance of consciousness. Laboratory tests revealed high-grade hypoglycaemia, hyponatraemia, liver dysfunction and thrombocytopaenia with disseminated intravascular coagulation. Sunitinib was discontinued and the patient recovered after a protracted platelet transfusion. At 5 months after treatment, CT revealed that the tumour thrombus had disappeared and other lesions had regressed. MRI at 15 months revealed further regression and suggested the possibility of histological remission according to the signal intensity of fibrosis. A partial response persisted at 20 months after treatment, despite residual accumulation in the renal tumour evident on positron emission tomography. In summary, we present a case of locally advanced RCC accompanied by severe adverse events that showed a significant and durable response to treatment with sunitinib for just 2 weeks.

  • urological cancer
  • unwanted effects/adverse reactions

https://doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2017-221494

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors AK: wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. AKat: contributed to assisted in the preparation of the manuscript. SI and TM: contributed to acquisition of data, and critically reviewed the manuscript. All authors: approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not Obtained.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.