New treatment option for patients with colorectal cancer launched
Bevacizumab inhibits VEGF |
Patients with colorectal cancer that has spread to other parts of the body may have their survival prolonged by a new drug launched this week.
Bevacizumab (Avastin; Roche) is a monoclonal antibody that works by inhibiting
vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a protein that stimulates
new blood vessel growth and which is overexpressed in many cancers. Its
inhibition also improves delivery of chemotherapy to the tumour by sealing
off leaky tumour vessels.
Bevacizumab is now licensed in the UK for the first-line treatment of
patients with metastatic carcinoma of the colon or rectum, in combination
with chemotherapy.
Approval of the drug was based on a study showing that patients treated
with bevacizumab plus chemotherapy lived for longer than those treated
with chemotherapy alone (20.3 months versus 15.6 months) (New England
Journal of Medicine 2004;350:2335).
David Cunningham, head of the gastrointestinal unit at the Royal Marsden
Hospital, London, commented: “As Avastin is not a chemotherapy,
patients do not have to live with additional chemotherapy-related side-effects.”
Adverse events with bevacizumab include gastrointestinal perforations,
wound healing complications, for example after surgery, haemorrhage and
arterial thromboembolic events.
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