Hyponatremia is associated with shorter cancer-specific survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) treated with molecular targeted therapy, Japanese researchers reported online in the International Journal of Urology.
In a retrospective study of 87 patients with metastatic RCC treated with sorafenib or sunitinib as first-line treatment, Atsunari Kawashima, MD, of Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, and colleagues found that median cancer-specific survival times were 8.8 months for patients with severe and mild hyponatremia compared with 32.6 months for patients with normal natremia. In multivariate analysis, severe and mild hyponatremia were associated with a significant sixfold and threefold increased risk of cancer-specific mortality, respectively.
