Purpose: To provide bevacizumab (BV) -based therapy to patients with advanced colorectal cancers (CRC) who had exhausted standard chemotherapy options, and to evaluate the response to BV combined with fluorouracil (FU) and leucovorin (LV) in this patient population.
Patients and methods: This was a multicenter, single-arm treatment trial conducted under the National Cancer Institute Treatment Referral Center network nationwide. Patients were treated with BV 5 mg/kg every 2 weeks combined with FU/LV; FU was administered by bolus or continuous infusion. Eligibility criteria included advanced CRC that had progressed after irinotecan- and oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 0 to 2, and absence of thromboembolism. The primary end point was objective response rate (RR) in the first 100 assessable patients. All patients received follow-up for toxicity and survival.
Results: Due to rapid accrual, a total of 350 patients were enrolled at 32 participating sites nationwide by October 2003. In the initially planned cohort of 100 assessable patients, the objective RR was 4% (95% CI, 1.1% to 9.9%) by investigators' assessment and 1% (95% CI, 0% to 5.5%) based on independent review; median progression-free survival was 3.5 months and median overall survival was 9.0 months. The safety profile was similar to prior BV trials in CRC. Grade 3 to 4 hemorrhage occurred in 5% of patients, including 3.8% with bleeding in the GI tract. Other adverse events such as hypertension, thrombosis, and bowel perforation were also observed at rates consistent with other studies.
Conclusion: For patients with advanced CRC that had progressed after both irinotecan-based and oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy regimens, the combination of BV and FU/LV was associated with rare objective responses.