Patients who developed hypertension with Avastin® (bevacizumab) had better response to treatment for colorectal cancer. More had tumors shrink, and it took significantly longer for their cancer to get worse.
In a small Italian study, researchers measured blood pressure in 39 patients receiving Avastin along with irinotecan and 5-FU for the initial treatment of colorectal cancer. Eight patients (20 percent) experienced grade 2 or 3 hypertension.
- Of those eight patients, six had tumors shrink or a partial response. On the other hand, only 10 of the 31 patients (32 percent) without an increase in blood pressure had partial responses to treatment.
- Median time before cancer got worse was 14.5 months for patients with hypertension compared to 3.1 months for those who didn’t have high blood pressure.
- Those without hypertension lived a median of 15.1 months, but median survival time hasn’t yet been reached for patients who responded to Avastin with an increase in blood pressure.
Grade 2 or moderate hypertension is defined as systolic pressure from 150 to 179 mm/Hg. Severe grade 3 is blood pressure over 180.
Dr. Mario Scartozzi and his colleagues in Ancona, Italy concluded,
Our data indicate that bevacizumab-induced hypertension may represent an interesting prognostic factor for clinical outcome in advanced colorectal cancer patients receiving first-line bevacizumab.
SOURCE: Scartozzi et al. Annals of Oncology, Advance Access: October 7, 2008.
Leave a Reply
Your comments are welcome. However, specific medical advice will not be provided. Generic QUESTIONS can be directed to our Answer Line team at http://fightcolorectalcancer.org/awareness/answer-line or by calling us at 1-877-427-2111 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Eastern time, Monday – Friday. We urge you to consult with a qualified physician for diagnosis and for answers to your personal questions. Fight Colorectal Cancer is not responsible for the medical accuracy of any comments left by persons other than Fight Colorectal Cancer staff members. Fight Colorectal Cancer staff members monitor comments and may respond publicly where appropriate.
Please note that we automatically publish the name that you enter next to your post. Also note that our pages are automatically indexed by Google and other search engines, and your name may therefore appear in search results on those sites. So if you wish to remain anonymous please use a different name or enter 'Anon' as the name.
We regret that we are unable to privately answer questions left as comments. So please do not include your phone number, email or mailing address in the body of your comment.