Topical Sildenafil as Pre-Treatment for Hand-Foot Skin Reaction
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2020-06-04
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Skin toxicities are a major complication to cancer therapies. They can be painful and limit
the amount of drug that can be received by cancer patients, preventing the patients from
receiving optimal doses of drug. One such cutaneous toxicity, hand-foot skin reaction (HFSR),
is caused by next generation targeted agents that are in routine use for the treatment of
kidney and liver cancer. HFSR is characterized by swelling, redness, and pain of the palms
and soles, in addition to the development of painful or thickened callus-like plaques with
fissures in areas of friction and pressure. The investigators have identified a topical
skin-directed therapy, 1% topical sildenafil cream, that the investigators believe will be
useful in preventing and ameliorating this painful, skin side effect associated with the
targeted agents sorafenib and sunitinib. This project proposal aims to conduct an open-label
pilot study to assess whether pre-medication with this cream can be an effective way of
preventing or decreasing the severity of hand-foot skin reaction, improving their quality of
life on therapy and enabling the patients to receive optimal amounts of their anti-cancer
drug.