chemistry

Sunitinib

Sunitinib is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sunitinib rather than just read about it. In short: Sunitinib, sold under the brand name Sutent, is an anti-cancer medication. It is a small-molecule, multi-targeted receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitor that was approved by the FDA for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and imatinib-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) in January 2006.

Key takeaways

Sunitinib belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sunitinib to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sunitinib from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sunitinib, sold under the brand name Sutent, is an anti-cancer medication. It is a small-molecule, multi-targeted receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitor that was approved by the FDA for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and imatinib-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) in January 2006. Sunitinib was the first cancer drug simultaneously approved for two different indications. As of August 2021, sunitinib is available as a generic medicine in the US.

Medical uses

Gastrointestinal stromal tumor Like renal cell carcinoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumors do not generally respond to standard chemotherapy or radiation. Imatinib was the first chemotherapeutic agent proven effective for metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors and represented a significant development in the treatment of this rare but challenging disease. However, approximately 20% of patients do not respond to imatinib (early or primary resistance), and among those who do respond initially, 50% develop secondary imatinib resistance and disease progression within two years. Before sunitinib, patients had no therapeutic option once they became resistant to imatinib. Sunitinib offers patients with imatinib-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumors a new treatment option to stop further disease progression and, in some cases, even reverse it. This was shown in a large phase III clinical trial in which patients who failed imatinib therapy (due to primary or secondary resistance or intolerance) were treated in a randomized and blinded fashion with either sunitinib or placebo. The study was unblinded early—at the first interim analysis—due to the clearly emerging benefit of sunitinib. Patients receiving a placebo were offered to switch to sunitinib at that time. In the primary endpoint of the study, the median time to tumor progression (TTP) was more than four-fold longer with sunitinib (27 weeks) compared with placebo (six weeks, P<.0001), based on an independent radiological assessment. The benefit of sunitinib remained statistically significant when stratified by many prespecified baseline variables. Among the secondary endpoints, the difference in progression-free survival (PFS) was similar to that in TTP (24 weeks vs. six weeks, P<.0001). Seven percent of sunitinib patients had significant tumor shrinkage (objective response) compared to 0% of patients receiving placebo (P=.006). Another 58% of sunitinib patients had disease stabilization vs. 48% of patients receiving placebo. The median time to response with sunitinib was 10.4 weeks. Sunitinib reduced the relative risk of disease progression or death by 67% and the risk of death alone by 51%. The difference in survival benefit may be diluted because placebo patients crossed over to sunitinib upon disease progression, and most of these patients subsequently responded to sunitinib. Sunitinib was relatively well tolerated. About 83% of sunitinib patients experienced a treatment-related adverse event of any severity, as did 59% of patients who received placebo. Serious adverse events were reported in 20% of sunitinib patients and 5% of placebo patients. Adverse events were generally moderate and easily managed by dose reduction, dose interruption, or other treatment. Nine percent of sunitinib patients and 8% of placebo patients discontinued therapy due to an adverse event. Fatigue is the adverse event most commonly associated with sunitinib therapy. In this study, 34% of sunitinib patients reported any fatigue, compared with 22% for placebo. The grade 3 (severe) fatigue incidence was similar between the two groups, and no grade 4 fatigue was reported.

Meningioma Sunitinib is being studied for the treatment of meningioma, which is associated with neurofibromatosis.

Aggressive fibromatosis As of 2024, sunitinib is being studied for aggressive fibromatosis (desmoid tumors).

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors In November 2010, sunitinib was authorized in the European Union for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic, well-differentiated pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors with disease progression in adults. In May 2011, the USFDA approved sunitinib for treating people with 'progressive neuroendocrine cancerous tumors located in the pancreas that cannot be removed by surgery, or that has spread to other parts of the body (metastatic).

Renal cell carcinoma Sunitinib is approved for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Renal cell carcinoma is generally resistant to chemotherapy or radiation. Before RTKs, metastatic disease could only be treated with the cytokines interferon alpha (IFNα) or interleukin-2. However, these agents demonstrated low rates of efficacy (5%-20%). In a phase III study, median progression-free survival was significantly longer in the sunitinib group (11 months) than in the IFNα group (five months), with a hazard ratio of 0.42. In the secondary endpoints, 28% had significant tumor shrinkage with sunitinib compared to 5% with IFNα. Patients receiving sunitinib had a better quality of life than IFNα. An update in 2008 showed that the primary endpoint of median progression-free survival (PFS) remained superior with sunitinib: 11 months versus 5 months for IFNα, P<.000001. Objective response rate also remained superior: 39-47% for sunitinib versus 8-12% with IFNα, P<.000001. Sunitinib treatment trended towards a slightly longer overall survival, although this was not statistically significant.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sunitinib

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sunitinib claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sunitinib before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sunitinib ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sunitinib

In research: Sunitinib appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sunitinib in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sunitinib is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Diethylamino compounds, Drugs developed by Pfizer, Fluoroarenes, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sunitinib outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sunitinib in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sunitinib means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sunitinib out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sunitinib in simple terms?

Why does Sunitinib matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sunitinib?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sunitinib.