A news release from last Wednesday stated that the clinical trial of NSABP C-08 was negative.

This was the clinical trial testing whether the addition of Avastin to FOLFOX would increase efficacy in reducing recurrence for patients with stage II and III colon cancer.  FOLFOX was given over 6 months compared to FOLFOX in combination with Avastin for 6 months, followed by additional 6 months of Avastin. There was a great hope that this anti-VEGF therapy would further decrease tumor recurrence. Read the rest of this entry »

When Avastin® (bevacizumab) was added to standard chemotherapy after surgery, it didn’t reduce the risk that early stage colon cancer would return, according to a press release this morning from Genentech.

NSABP C-08 randomly assigned patients with stage II or III colon cancer to FOLFOX chemotherapy with or without additional Avastin.  During the Phase III clinical trial, all patients received FOLFOX (oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and infused 5-FU) every two weeks for six months.  Half also got Avastin with each treatment plus an additional six months of Avastin only.

The study’s primary objective was disease-free survival, defined as lack of recurrence, another new cancer, or death for any reason.  According to Genentech, adding Avastin to chemotherapy didn’t do any better job of meeting this goal than chemotherapy alone.

Information from the trial will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting at the beginning of June.

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Adding Erbitux to standard first line treatment for colorectal cancer of CAPOX with Avastin doesn’t help.  In fact, patients who receive the additional agent have a shorter time until their cancer gets worse and have worse side effects.

Results of a randomized phase III clinical trial that added the monoclonal antibody Erbitux® (cetuximab) to Xeloda® (capecitabine), oxaliplatin, and Avastin® (bevacizumab) showed shorter time to cancer progression for patients who got Erbitux in addition to the standard treatment. There was no difference in whether the tumor shrank or overall survival time. Patients who got Erbitux were about 20 percent more likely to have tumors get worse or to die than patients who didn’t.

This was the first chemotherapy treatment for metastatic cancer that these patients were given.  All of them had metastatic tumors that had spread beyond their colons.

While patients with wild-type (normal) KRAS genes in their tumors had longer progression-free time on Erbitux than those with KRAS mutations, that time did not reach the median progression-free interval for patients in the standard treatment group. Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing Avastin® (bevacizumab) beyond the time when advanced colorectal cancer gets worse helps patients, according to new study reports.  Patients who continued to receive Avastin with a new chemotherapy regimen after their cancer first progressed lived almost 12 months longer than patients who got more chemo but stopped Avastin.  Both groups did better than those who had no further treatment at all.

BRiTE (Bevacizumab Regimens: Investigation of Treatment Effects and Safety) observed progress of three groups of patients when their cancer got worse after their first chemotherapy treatments.  All patients had Avastin as part of the first chemo, some continued it beyond that first cancer progression. Read the rest of this entry »

Colorectal cancer patients with a KRAS mutation in their tumors benefit when Avastin® (bevacizumab) is added to chemotherapy, as do patients with no mutation or wild-type KRAS.

Both the time until cancer got worse (progression-free survival) and time patients lived after beginning treatment (survival) were better when Avastin was added to chemotherapy regardless of tumor KRAS mutation.  Avastin did not improve overall response rates in the patients with KRAS mutations.

However, overall prognosis is worse for patients with KRAS mutations than those with wild-type KRAS with either chemotherapy alone or chemotherapy with Avastin.  As a group, they tend to live for a shorter time and have their tumors progress more quickly.

Results of an analysis of 280 tumor samples from an earlier Phase III trial comparing chemotherapy with Camptosar® (irinotecan), 5FU, and leucovorin to the same chemotherapy plus Avastin were presented at the World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona in June, 2008. Read the rest of this entry »