Sutent and Radiation as Treatment for Limited Extent Metastatic Cancer

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, with approximately 90% of deaths resulting from patients with metastatic spread. Save for notable exceptions such as testicular cancer, chemotherapy alone cannot cure patients with metastases. Some patients with limited metastatic deposits (most commonly colon cancer spread to the liver) can be cured with surgery followed by chemotherapy. Therefore, some patients with metastases should be considered for aggressive local therapy (surgery and/or radiation).

Even though chemotherapy has improved significantly, patients treated with conventional chemotherapy and/or biologically targeted therapy are not cured of their disease. For the most common types of cancer, chemotherapy alone can shrink or stabilize tumors for an average of 6 months before the tumors regrow. Both chemotherapy and biologically targeted therapy have major limitations preventing cure of these patients.

Radiation therapy is an effective modality of treating cancer. Until recently, radiation for metastases was used only to relieve symptoms resulting from local tumor growth. Technological advances, including stereotactic radiotherapy, allow for radiation to be more precisely delivered to the tumor while sparing nearby normal organs. Stereotactic radiotherapy can completely eradicate local tumors with minimal side effects. Stereotactic radiotherapy has never been combined with drug therapy. Sutent is a new F.D.A. approved cancer therapy that targets tumor blood vessels. It is effective against two types of cancer that rarely respond to chemotherapy (GI stromal tumors and kidney cancer). We propose combining biologically targeted drug therapy with physically targeted stereotactic radiotherapy. Our goal is to determine if this is a safe regimen and the best method of combining these treatments. Ultimately, our goal is to cure some patients with previously incurable metastatic cancer with this combination.