News Briefs: Bevacizumab/chemotherapy show benefits for advanced lung cancer
Bevacizumab/chemotherapy show benefits for advanced lung cancer
Preliminary results from a large, randomized clinical trial for patients with previously untreated advanced nonsquamous, non-small cell lung cancer show that those patients who received bevacizumab (Avastin) in combination with standard chemotherapy lived longer than patients who received the same chemotherapy without bevacizumab.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) sponsored the clinical trial; Genentech, which manufactures bevacizumab, provided bevacizumab for the trial under the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with NCI for the clinical development of bevacizumab.
A total of 878 patients with advanced non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer who had not previously received systemic chemotherapy were enrolled in this study between July 2001 and April 2004. Patients were randomized to one of the two treatment arms. One patient group received standard treatment — six cycles of paclitaxel and carboplatin. The second group received the same six-cycle chemotherapy regimen with the addition of bevacizumab, followed by bevacizumab alone until disease progression.
The data monitoring committee overseeing the trial recommended that the results of a recent interim analysis be made public because the study had met its primary endpoint of improving overall survival. Researchers found that patients in the study who received bevacizumab in combination with standard chemotherapy had a median overall survival of 12.5 months compared to patients treated with the standard chemotherapy alone, who had a median survival of 10.2 months. This difference is statistically significant. Detailed results from this trial will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting (ASCO) in Orlando, FL, on May 13-17.
The most significant adverse event observed in this study was life-threatening or fatal bleeding, primarily from the lungs. This occurred infrequently, but was more common in the patient group that received bevacizumab in combination with chemotherapy than in the patient group that received only chemotherapy.
Preliminary results from a large, randomized clinical trial for patients with previously untreated advanced nonsquamous, non-small cell lung cancer show that those patients who received bevacizumab (Avastin) in combination with standard chemotherapy lived longer than patients who received the same chemotherapy without bevacizumab.Subscribe Now for Access
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