Bevacizumab may improve survival in ovarian
cancer
10 January 2012
Adding the drug bevacizumab to chemotherapy for ovarian cancer
can slow down the disease and may improve overall survival in women
at high risk of recurrence, according to new research from an
international research team led by the Medical Research Council, St
James’s Institute of Oncology in Leeds, and the Princess Margaret
Hospital, Toronto.
The interim results from a large-scale clinical trial known as
ICON7,
published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest
that bevacizumab delays progression of the disease by an average of
two months, compared with standard chemotherapy.
The effect appeared largest in women with the most aggressive
disease. In these women the disease was stalled for almost six
months. There was also a trend towards improved overall survival in
these women. However, the researchers will not know for certain
whether the drug extends the overall life expectancy of ovarian
cancer patients until the final results are reported in 2013.
Chief investigator Dr Tim Perren, Consultant Oncologist from St
James’s Institute of Oncology, St James’s University Hospital,
Leeds and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds,
said:
“These
results are potentially very encouraging particularly for women
with advanced ovarian cancer. Bevacizumab is the first new drug for
15 years to show an advantage over existing treatments for women
with this disease. These results are however preliminary and will
not be fully confirmed until early 2013.”
Professor Max Parmar, Director of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit
and co-author of the study, said:
“This
suggests that bevacizumab could be considered as a treatment for
women with an advanced form of the disease, or whose cancer has
come back after chemotherapy treatment. However, the decision on
whether to include the drug routinely should be delayed until we
have further evidence on its impact on overall survival.”
Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in women in the
UK with 6,500 new cases diagnosed each year. As two-thirds of women
are diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease, survival rates
are poor. There has been little improvement in overall survival
rates since the introduction of the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel 15
years ago.
Bevacizumab is a ‘targeted’ cancer therapy that works by
blocking the development of new blood vessels and interfering with
the tumour’s ability to grow and spread to other parts of the body.
Combining bevacizumab with chemotherapy has been shown to improve
the effectiveness of treatment in several other forms of the
disease including lung, breast and colorectal cancers. ICON7 aimed
to find out if this was also the case in ovarian cancer.
The trial followed 1,528 ovarian cancer patients who were
randomly allocated to receive either standard chemotherapy, or a
combination of standard treatment and bevacizumab, following
surgery to remove their tumour. The researchers recorded the time
taken for the disease to return, measured by CT scan.
The interim results of ICON7 – reported after 28 months of
follow-up – are supported by the findings of an American trial of
bevacizumab (GOG218) which is published in the same issue of the
New England Journal of Medicine as ICON7.
The ICON7 trial is sponsored by the Medical Research Council,
run through the Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup – an international
cooperative group for clinical trials in gynaecological cancers.
Funding for running costs is provided by the pharmaceutical company
Roche. This trial was supported in the UK by the National Institute
for Health Research Cancer Research Network (NCRN).
For more information about this story, see this policy brief
exploring what is known about bevacizumab for treating ovarian
cancer.
For more information about this story, see this study
page.
