A Ten-Year Real-Life Experience with Pazopanib in Uterine Leyomiosarcoma in Two High-Specialized Centers in Italy: Effectiveness and Safety

Abstract

Background: Uterine leiomyosarcoma (uLMS) is characterized by aggressive behavior associated with a high risk of relapse and mortality. Several therapeutic agents have been employed in the treatment of metastatic disease, with a poor objective response rate. Pazopanib, approved in 2012, is a multi-targeted, orally active small molecule that exerts its effects by inhibiting several tyrosine kinases. To date, poor research on real-life data has been conducted. We aimed to assess the effectiveness and safety of the drug in everyday clinical practice. Methods: We present results of multicenter retrospective data on 38 patients with heavily pretreated metastatic uLMS who underwent oral pazopanib during their therapeutic journey. Results: At a median follow-up of 8.6 months, the disease control rate was 55.2%, with 17% partial responses and 15 patients (39.5%) with stable disease. At a median follow-up of 8.6 months, median progression-free survival was 4 months, and median overall survival was 19.8 months. The most common grade 3 adverse events (AEs) drug-related were hepatic toxicities, diarrhea, hypertension, nausea, and vomiting (all of them with an incidence of 5% considering the whole study cohort). No grade 4 AEs occurred. Conclusions: Pazopanib in everyday clinical practice is safe and shows a good disease control rate with prolonged survival.

Keywords

• uterine leyomiosarcoma
• pazopanib
• effectiveness
• safety
• survival