| Exclusion Criteria: | 1) Pregnant or lactating women.
2) No prior malignancy is allowed, except for non-melanoma skin cancer, in situ carcinoma of any site, or other cancers for which the patient has been adequately treated and disease free for 2 years.
3) Patients must not have received more than 2 prior systemic therapies for RCC, but patients should not have received any prior chemotherapy for RCC. Chemotherapy given for other types of cancer more than 2 years prior to enrollment on this protocol is permitted.
4) Patients must not be scheduled to receive any experimental drug for MRCC while on study. Patients are permitted to be on concomitant bisphosphonates or megestrol acetate. Patients are permitted to receive hematopoietic growth factors according to American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guidelines.
5) Patients must not have had prior radiotherapy to areas of measurable disease, unless they have clearly progressive disease in this site, or there is measurable disease outside the area of prior radiation. Radiotherapy, if needed for palliation, must have been completed prior to enrollment on this study.
6) Pts must not have any significant medical disease (other than the malignancy) that, in the opinion of the investigator, would significantly increase the risk for participation in this trial. Examples of exclusion: unstable angina pectoris, New York Heart Association (NYHA) Grade II or greater congestive heart failure, unstable symptomatic cardiac arrhythmias requiring medication (subjects with controlled chronic atrial fibrillation are eligible), myocardial infarction within the last 6 months, uncontrolled hypertension (blood pressure >160/110 on therapy) or uncontrolled diabetes mellitus.
7) Patients must not have history of other diseases, metabolic dysfunction, physical examination finding, or clinical laboratory finding giving reasonable suspicion of a disease or condition that contraindicates the use of an investigational drug or that might affect the interpretation of the results of the study or render the subject at high risk from treatment complications.
8) Patients unwilling to participate or unable to comply with the protocol for the duration of the study.
9) Inability or unwillingness to take corticosteroid, folic acid or vitamin B12 supplementation.
10) Inability to interrupt aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents for a 5 day period (for short acting NSAIDs) or 8-day period (for long-lasting NSAIDs, such as piroxicam) |