Adjuvant sunitinib approval (2017)
The FDA approved sunitinib after surgery for high-risk kidney cancer based on the S-TRAC trial. The drug delayed recurrence but never showed patients lived longer. Side effects were heavy.
Many oncologists hesitated to prescribe it. Adoption stayed low despite the approval.
It became a cautionary case that a delay in recurrence does not always translate into longer life or wide use.
It shows why the pending survival data for belzutifan-pembrolizumab matters so much. A recurrence benefit alone may not be enough to win over doctors.
