Antibody useful in renal-cell cancer
A new treatment option for patients with metastatic renal cancer has shown promise in a phase II trial.
Bevacizumab is a neutralising antibody against vascular endothelial growth
factor and appears to prolong time to disease progression in patients
with metastatic renal-cell cancer. Researchers from the United States
National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, compared the drug with
placebo in 116 patients. Bevacizumab was given at one of two doses — 3
and 10mg per kg of body weight, given every two weeks as an intravenous
infusion.
Time to disease progression was, on average, 2.3 months longer for patients
given high-dose antibody than for patients given placebo. In addition,
more patients assigned to the high-dose group than to placebo were disease
free four months and eight months after the start of the trial (64 per
cent compared with 20 per cent and 30 per cent compared with 5 per cent,
respectively).
The researchers say that although bevacizumab had only a small clinical
benefit, the effects were likely to be due to true biological activity.
Earlier in vitro data suggest that the drug’s antitumour effects
are due to inhibition of angiogenesis.
They suggest that future treatments for renal cancer that target angiogenic
mechanisms should consider pathways other than the one mediated by vascular
endothelial growth factor. “It is likely that the future of angiogenic
therapy will require a rational combination of inhibitors, directed by
a better understanding of the biology of each individual type of cancer,” they
conclude (New England Journal of Medicine 2003;349:427). |
