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Risk of gastrointestinal events with newly approved (after 2011) vascular endothelial growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors in cancer patients: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

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Abstract

Purpose

We performed a meta-analysis to systematically review the gastrointestinal (GI) events (diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, anorexia) of five newly approved (after 2011) VEGFR-TKIs in cancer patients.

Methods

The relevant studies of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in cancer patients treated with cabozantinib, vandetanib, lenvatinib, regorafenib, and axitinib were retrieved and the systematic evaluation was conducted.

Results

Forty-one randomized controlled trials and 10,860 patients were included. Current analysis suggested that the use of these agents increased the risk of all-grade and high-grade GI events, and the diarrhea was the most common GI events. The risk of all-grade and high-grade GI events varies significantly within drug types, tumor types, and VEGFR-TKIs-based regimens.

Conclusion

The available data suggested that the use of the five newly approved VEGFR-TKIs may increase risk of GI events in cancer patients. Physicians and patients should be aware of these risks and frequent monitoring and careful management should be emphasized when managing these VEGFR-TKIs.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Wenxia SUN for English translation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Pharmacy, Southwest University for Nationalities, No.16 South 4th Section, 1st Ring Road, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, People’s Republic of China

    Jing Li & Jian Gu

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  1. Jing Li
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  2. Jian Gu
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Contributions

Jing Li was responsible for the conception of the work, wrote the manuscript, and study search and selection. Jian Gu contributed to study search and selection and carried out the statistical analyses.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jing Li.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Funding

This study was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Southwest University for Nationalities, 2017NZYQN29.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

For this type of study, formal consent is not required.

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Li, J., Gu, J. Risk of gastrointestinal events with newly approved (after 2011) vascular endothelial growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors in cancer patients: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 73, 1209–1217 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-017-2299-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-017-2299-y

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