Adding Pemetrexed to Bevacizumab in Advanced Nonsquamous Lung Cancer
Posted: Monday, March 30, 2020
Adding pemetrexed to treatment with bevacizumab extended progression-free survival in patients with nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the phase III COMPASS trial. However, no statistically significant benefit in terms of overall survival was reported. Takashi Seto, MD, of the National Hospital Organization Kyushu Cancer Center, Fukuoka, Japan, and colleagues published their findings in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
“Pemetrexed plus bevacizumab combination maintenance therapy after induction therapy with carboplatin, pemetrexed, and bevacizumab is useful in patients with advanced nonsquamous NSCLC, especially in those with wild-type EGFR,” the authors wrote.
The phase III clinical trial randomly assigned 599 patients to treatment with either bevacizumab alone or bevacizumab plus pemetrexed. All patients had untreated advanced nonsquamous NSCLC and did not have confirmed L858R mutations or EGFR 19 deletions.
Overall survival was extended by 3.7 months in the pemetrexed treatment group compared with the bevacizumab-alone group, but the difference was not statistically significant. There was a statistically significant difference in progression-free survival: 5.7 months with pemetrexed compared with 4.0 months without. There was also a significant difference in overall survival among the subgroup of patients with wild-type EGFR genes; median overall survival in this patient subgroup was 23.3 months with pemetrexed, compared with 18.8 months without.
Disclosure: The authors’ disclosures can be found at ascopubs.org.
