Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Wyeth, announced on Monday that the European Commision had approved Torisel (temsirolimus) for the first line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Patients suffering from RCC have more chances to prolong their lives if treated with Torisel, instead of widely used treatment interferon-alpha, according to clinical trials, Reuters reports.

Torisel was approved in the United States in May for treatment of advanced kidney cancer.

About 32,000 new cases of RCC are diagnosed in the United States. In Europe, the disease accounts for about 85 percent of the estimated 85,000 news cases of kidney cancer diagnosed annually, Wyeth said.

"Temsirolimus was studied in the most difficult-to-treat patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma: those who have multiple risk factors that have been associated with shortened survival. The ability of temsirolimus to provide an increase in overall survival in these patients provides us with a much-needed new option for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer," says Bernard Escudier, M.D., Head of the Immunotherapy Unit, Department of Medical Oncology, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France, and an investigator in the Torisel phase 3 study. "

About 626 patients suffering from advanced RCC were administered Torisel during the study trials. The findings revealed that Torisel increased median overall survival by 49 percent compared with interferon-alpha (almost 11 months compared to 7.3 months).

Combined with interferon-alpha, Torisel did not have significant increase in overall survival compared with interferon-alpha alone.