Axitinib controlled metastatic renal cell carcinoma for 5 years.

We present two patients with a long-term response to axitinib for cytokine-refractory metastatic renal cell carcinoma. One patient has had a continuing partial response for 58 months with cytokine-intolerant metastatic renal cell carcinoma and the other patient has had continuing stable disease accompanied by a mixed response for 57 months with cytokine-refractory and intolerant metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The condition of hypertension as an adverse event markedly depended on whether or not axitinib was administered. The patients responded to axitinib with an elevation of diastolic blood pressure to 90 mmHg or higher until 2 weeks after starting axitinib. To get a long-term response to axitinib, it may be important to control well the balance between treatment effect and adverse events while using drug withdrawal.