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MONDAY, Nov 19, 2007 (News Locale) - Cancer drug bevacizumab or Avastin was able to slow down the progression of the most aggressive form of brain cancer in a randomized, multi-center Phase II clinical study, Avastin maker Genentech Inc has announced.
These promising results were seen in patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), which happens to be the most aggressive form of brain cancer in man. Avastin is already approved in the United States for the treatment of colon cancer as well as lung cancer
Genentech said the drug is being tested in 300 clinical trials across the world to gauge its effect on various types of tumors. Avastin works by cutting off the blood supply to tumor sites. In the current Phase II trial 167 patients with GBM were enrolled.
The cancer in all patients had relapsed after first- or second-line therapy. "Patients were randomized to receive Avastin alone or in combination with irinotecan every other week for up to 104 weeks," Genentech revealed. For study purposes, progression-free survival (PFS) was defined as the absence of any event of cancer progression or death.
Of the 85 people who received Avastin alone, 31 people or 36 percent lived without the disease advancing within six months. The corresponding number for patients receiving Avastin in combination with other chemotherapy drugs was 51 percent, which means that 42 patients of the 82 assigned for combination therapy lived without the disease advancing within six months.
Reporting at the 12th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society for Neuro-Oncology, lead investigator Timothy Cloughesy, M.D., director, Neuro-Oncology Program of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California said, "The findings suggested that at six months, more patients had lived without their cancer advancing when Avastin was administered as a single-agent or in combination with chemotherapy, than what we would normally expect."
Genentech also said that no new adverse events were noted with Avastin in the new trial. The most common adverse events were asthenia, pain, abdominal pain, headache, hypertension, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, stomatitis, constipation, upper respiratory infection, epistaxis, dyspnea, exfoliative dermatitis and proteinuria.
Avastin works by inhibiting vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a protein that plays an important role in the formation of blood vessels that feed the cancer. The drug was first approved for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer by the FDA on February 26, 2004.
"On October 11, 2006, the FDA approved Avastin in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel as a treatment of patients with unresectable, locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer," Genentech revealed.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 20,500 new cases of brain cancer will be diagnosed in 2007 and 12,740 patients will die from the disease. If Avastin lives up to the promise shown in this trial, then the survival rates of this aggressive form of brain cancer may improve.
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