medwireNews: The outcomes of patients with a first recurrence of WHO grade II or III glioma without the 1p/19q co-deletion are not improved when bevacizumab is added to the standard of care temozolomide, suggest phase II trial findings.
In the per-protocol population, the 12-month overall survival rate was 55% for the 69 participants who received bevacizumab 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks alongside temozolomide at a dose of 150–200 mg/m2 on the first 5 days of each 4-week cycle, and 61% among the 72 patients given just temozolomide.
Other outcomes, including progression-free survival and quality of life, were also similar across the study groups, whereas the incidence of grade 3 or 4 and serious adverse events was higher in the combination arm.
Lead author Martin van den Bent (Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam, the Netherlands) and fellow TAVAREC investigators point out that the trial was “not powered for formal comparison,” but they nonetheless conclude that the data “provide no support for further phase 3 studies on the role of bevacizumab in this disease.”
In a commentary accompanying the research in The Lancet Oncology, Jens Gempt and Bernhard Meyer (both from Technical University Munich, Germany) write: “Considering that the study by van den Bent and colleagues was well conducted, the use of bevacizumab to treat patients with intrinsic brain tumours should be evaluated more critically.”
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