Real-World View From Germany: Bevacizumab-Containing Therapy for Locally or Metastatic Breast Cancer
Posted: Monday, December 6, 2021
Findings from the phase III AVANTI trial, presented in the journal The Breast, reported that treatment with bevacizumab plus capecitabine and bevacizumab plus paclitaxel remained valid first-line treatments for patients with HER2-negative locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer. Andreas Schneeweiss, MD, of the National Center for Tumor Diseases at the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, and colleagues concluded that in routine clinical practice in Germany, the effectiveness and safety of these first-line bevacizumab-containing therapies appeared to be consistent with results from other phase III trials.
“Treatment options continue to evolve, particularly in the settings of hormone receptor–positive disease before initiation of chemotherapy and in PD-L1–positive or BRCA-mutated locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer, but for the many patients not eligible for biomarker-selected therapies, bevacizumab-containing regimens remain an effective and tolerable therapy, irrespective of age,” the authors concluded.
In this noninterventional study, the authors enrolled 2,065 patients from 345 centers in Germany. Patients all had HER2-negative locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer. The maximum follow-up was 2.5 years.
The authors found that patients who received bevacizumab plus capecitabine were less likely to have de novo disease and more likely to have triple-negative breast cancer, prior anthracycline or taxane, and endocrine therapy. The median progression-free survival for all patients was 12.6 months, with a length of 12.8 months for those who received bevacizumab plus paclitaxel and 10.5 months for those who received bevacizumab with capecitabine. The median overall survival for all patients was 23.9 months.
Grade 3 or higher adverse events were reported in 27% of all patients, and treatment was discontinued because of adverse events in 15% of patients. In total, 304 of 394 responding patients (77%) rated their treatment satisfaction as “good or better” at week 54 of treatment.
Disclosure: For disclosures of the study authors, visit thebreastonline.com.
