Quality of life in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma treated with temsirolimus or interferon-α

BACKGROUND: Temsirolimus was approved in Europe as first-line treatment of poor-prognosis advanced renal cell carcinoma (advRCC) based on significant clinical benefits. METHODS: Patients with advRCC and multiple poor-prognostic factors were randomly assigned to receive 25 mg intravenous temsirolimus weekly, interferon-α (titrated to 18 mU) three times weekly, or 15 mg intravenous temsirolimus weekly plus 6 mU of interferon-α three times weekly. EuroQol-5D utility score (EQ-5D index) and the EQ-5D visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS) responses were recorded. For analysis, patients were required to have their EQ-5D data recorded at baseline, week 12, and last visit after week 12. The analysis was conducted using last-visit data and a repeated-measures mixed-effect (RMME) model to evaluate quality-of-life differences between temsirolimus and interferon-α, controlling for baseline covariates. RESULTS: Average EQ-5D score at the last measure was significantly higher in patients receiving temsirolimus compared with interferon-α: by 0.10 on EQ-5D index (P=0.0279) and by 6.61 on EQ-VAS (P=0.0095). In the RMME model, the least-square mean for on-treatment EQ-5D index score was 0.590 with temsirolimus and 0.492 with interferon-α (P=0.0022). CONCLUSION: Temsirolimus is associated with significantly higher EQ-5D scores compared with interferon-α in patients with previously untreated poor-prognosis advRCC.