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Avastin use in ovarian cancer may delay disease
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CBC News
A drug formerly used to treat advanced breast cancer may slightly extend the lifespan of women with advanced ovarian cancer, new research suggests.
A study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine says that Avastin (bevacizumab) appeared to delay the return of ovarian cancer by two months overall. In women with advanced cancer, the delay was five to six months.
The seven-year international clinical trial which began in 2004, involved 1,528 women with ovarian cancer at 263 centres. Twenty of those centres were in Canada, while the rest were in 11 other countries. The study was partially funded by Roche, which makes Avastin, and the National Institute for Health Research.
During the study, women were administered Avastin every three weeks for 12 months while receiving chemotherapy and were compared to a control group not taking the drug. Though their cancer was delayed, many women taking Avastin experienced high blood pressure, the authors noted.
"This is the first new drug in ovarian cancer in 15 years to improve outcome and I believe it should be considered as a potential new standard of care," said Dr. Amit Oza, a medical oncologist who leads the Cancer Clinical Research Unit at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, in a release. Oza led the study with Timothy Perren of the St. James Institute of Oncology in Leeds, England.
Results from another clinical trial involving 1,873 women with advanced ovarian cancer, also released Thursday in the NEJM and conducted by the Gynecologic Oncology Group, suggest Avastin may delay the progression of ovarian cancer by an average of four months. This study was funded in part by the National Cancer Institute and Genentech, owned by Roche.
In women who took Avastin with chemotherapy and then followed their treatment solely with Avastin for an extra 10 months, the median time until their cancer got worse was was 14.1 months versus 10.3 months for those women who took placebo in lieu of Avastin. Women taking Avastin had higher rates of "gastrointestinal wall disruption" requiring hospitalization, according to the study.
Avastin works by preventing blood vessels from forming in tumours, which they need to grow.
The use of Avastin to treat metastatic breast cancer was revoked by Health Canada on Nov. 28 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that there was no evidence it extended the lives of women with the disease.
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