Pazopanib Hydrochloride in Treating Patients With Metastatic Kidney Cancer Who Have No Evidence of Disease After Surgery

Inclusion Criteria: * Patient must be at least 18 years of age at the time of randomization * Patient must have pathologically confirmed renal cell carcinoma with a clear cell component; pure papillary and chromophobe histologies are excluded; there must be pathologic confirmation of metastatic disease in the resected metastasectomy specimen * Patient must have undergone nephrectomy or partial nephrectomy to remove primary renal cell carcinoma (at any time in the past) * Patient must have undergone surgical resection to remove one or more sites of metastatic disease, with successful removal of all known sites 2-12 weeks prior to randomization. Any number of prior metastasectomies may have been performed in the past, so long as the most recent procedure was within the 12 weeks of registration. The most recent procedure may be nephrectomy for a renal primary tumor * Patients with synchronous disease at initial diagnosis must have metastatic (M1) disease (American Joint Committee on Cancer \[AJCC\] 7th edition T1-4N0-1M1) * Positive surgical margins are permitted if the surgeon confirms complete resection of gross metastatic disease, and post-operative scans are negative * Patients presenting with metachronous disease may have distant metastases, regional lymph node or renal bed recurrence. Recurrences at a partial nephrectomy resection site are not eligible if it is the only site of disease * Patient must have no evidence of disease on post-operative imaging: * A computed t…