CHICAGO, June 2: Adding cancer drug Avastin to standard chemotherapy doubled the length of time a certain group of advanced ovarian cancer patients lived without their disease getting worse, according to results of a clinical trial.
The study involved 361 women whose cancer had stopped responding to traditional platinum-based chemotherapy.
After a median follow-up of 13.5 months, 75 percent of Avastin patients had a recurrence of cancer, compared to 91 percent of those who received chemotherapy alone.
The median time to disease progression or death was 6.7 months in the combination group and 3.4 months in the chemotherapy group.
‘A lot of drugs have been tested in this situation,’ said Dr Eric Pujade-Lauraine, head ofG roup d’Investigateurs Nationaux pour l’Etude des Cancers Ovariens, an ovarian cancer clinical trials cooperative group based in Paris.
‘It is the first time that a Phase 3 trial has shown a significant difference,’ said Pujade-Lauraine, the study’s lead investigator.
The study, to be presented on Saturday at a meeting here of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, involved 361 women whose cancer had stopped responding to traditional platinum-based chemotherapy.
(agencies)
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