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"New medication approved for gastrointestinal tumours"

Source: Medical Post

Published: 04 Aug 2022

Category: Pharmaceutical

Rating: (4 stars)

what they said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

Health Canada has approved Sutent (sunitinib) capsules to treat GIST for patients who have failed imatinib mesylate treatment due to resistance or intolerance.
Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (or GIST) represent a rare, extremely hard-to-treat type of stomach and intestinal cancer. For newly diagnosed patients, the primary treatment option is surgery, and after surgery, GIST patients with advanced disease receive Gleevec (imatinib), currently the standard of medical care.
For many patients, Gleevec works well-for a time. However, most GI stromal tumours develop resistance to Gleevec after two years of therapy (and often before); sunitinib can then provide life-extending second-line treatment. One phase III study of Gleevec-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumours was ended in January 2005, earlier than planned, so impressive was the efficacy data for Sutent

The original article can found in the Media Doctor archives.

how did it rate? (more information)

Criteria	Rating
Total Score	8 of 10
Availability of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Novelty of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Disease Mongering	Satisfactory (?)
Treatment Options	Satisfactory (?)
Costs of Treatment	Not Satisfactory (?)
Evidence	Satisfactory (?)
Quantification of Benefits of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Harms of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Sources of Information	Not Satisfactory (?)
Relies on Press Release	Not Applicable
Quantification of Harms of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)

what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

This article is relatively complete in discussing the evidence, the benefits and the harms related to this new treatment for gastrointestinal tumours.

While the story mentions that "treatment-related tumour hemorrhaging was also observed in patients receiving Sutent" we get no sense of how often this happens compared to patients treated with placebo.

Sadly, the issues of cost-efficiency and provincial funding are not mentioned.

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