Dr. Edith Mitchell

Last night, Dr. Edith Mitchell of Thomas Jefferson University Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, updated colorectal cancer patients on the latest research and treatment news in an online webinar.

Dr. Mitchell highlighted the most important news for colon and rectal cancer patients to come from the 2011 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium held in San Francisco last month. She answer such questions as…

“Can doctors determine the chances that my cancer may return?”

“Can my doctors determine if I need chemotherapy?”

“Does Avastin or Erbitux benefit my stage III cancer treatment?”

“Are there any promising new treatments on the horizon?”

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A second randomized clinical trial has confirmed what the first one found — adding Avastin to standard chemotherapy does not reduce recurrences after surgery for stage III colon cancer.

The AVANT trial compared standard FOLFOX chemotherapy to either FOLFOX plus Avastin® (bevacizumab) or XELOX plus Avastin.  Chemo was given for 6 months, and Avastin was added during that time and for another 6 months after chemo ended. Nearly 2,870 stage III patients took part in the study.

Like in the C-08 trial, there was a temporary benefit during the year that patients got Avastin, but it didn’t last.  By the end of three years the percentage of people who were alive and cancer-free was slightly less in the two Avastin arms.  Read the rest of this entry »

Adding Avastin® (bevacizumab) to chemotherapy for early stage colon cancer didn’t reduce the risk that cancer would return.

In fact, preliminary results of the AVANT trial found that chemotherapy alone worked better in preventing recurrences of stage III and high-risk stage II colon cancer, according to a news release from Roche, sponsors of the international clinical trial.

This is the second trial in which adding Avastin to chemotherapy after surgery for early stage colon cancer failed to show a disease-free survival benefit.  The C-08 trial found that, although Avastin did improve disease-free survival during the first year of treatment, the benefit had disappeared by the third year.

The results of the AVANT trial have been eagerly awaited since conclusions of the similar C-08 trial were announced in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »

Some colorectal cancer patients whose tumors had gotten worse on all standard treatments benefited from a combination of Afinitor® (everolimus) and Avastin® (bevacizumab) during a small trial reported at the 2010 ASCO Annual meeting in Chicago.

While no tumors got smaller on the treatment, about half of patients in the Phase II trial had their cancer remain stable for six months or more.  Three patients have had stable disease for more than a year.

Seven out of ten patients in the trial had at least one serious side effect.  The most common was hypertension, but there were several bowel abscesses or fistulas and one case of bowel perforation.  There was one death due to treatment infection.

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It doesn’t hurt to stop XELOX chemotherapy combined with Avastin after six treatments and continue with Avastin alone until colorectal cancer gets worse, according to a study reported at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

Many patients have to stop oxaliplatin chemotherapy with before getting its maximum effectiveness because of peripheral neuropathy — tingling, numbness, or pain in their hands and feet.  Xeloda® (capecitabine) can cause painful skin redness and cracking on the hands and feet or hand-foot syndrome, which can also affect time on chemotherapy.

Giving only six treatments of Avastin® (bevacizumab) plus XELOX chemotherapy and then stopping XELOX and using only Avastin until cancer progressed was as effective for the initial or first-line treatment of colorectal cancer as continuing XELOX.  XELOX combines Xeloda® (capecitabine) with oxaliplatin.

In addition, the strategy reduced both severe peripheral neuropathy and hand-foot syndrome.

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