by ecancer reporter Janet Fricker

Bevacizumab added to standard first-line chemotherapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer improved progression free survival to a greater extent than standard chemotherapy alone, concluded the ICON-7 study presented in the ESMO Presidential Symposium. The phase III study, however, found that the amount of benefit diminished over time.

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most commonly cancer in women and represents the eighth leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide.  “It’s a disease that initially responds well to surgery, but the benefits are short lived. More than half of patients develop recurrent disease for which they will eventually die,” said the study presenter Tim Perren from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, UK, who presented the study, adding that the average time to develop recurrent disease was 18 months.

There have been no significant new drugs for ovarian cancer since the mid 1990s with oncologists believing that bevacizumab (a monoclonal antibody that binds vascular endothelial growth factor which is important in the development of new blood vessels) represents a major step forward.

In the phase III study, 1528  women  were randomly assigned after surgery to 6 cycles of carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy given once every three weeks for six cycles  (n=392) or the same chemotherapy plus bevacizumab given concurrently and then on its own as a maintenance treatment for up to an additional  12 cycles (n=367).

Results show that at 12 months women taking bevacizumab on top of  chemotherapy had 15%  reduced risk of their disease progressing compared to those taking chemotherapy alone (P<0.0010).

However  the effect dwindled with time – the  median time to progression was 19 months for the bevacizumab arm versus 17.3 months for the control arm ( p =.0041)

"ICON-7 met its primary endpoint and demonstrated that at 12 months the risk of developing further progression of ovarian cancer was reduced when compared with the risk of progression seen with chemotherapy treatment alone," said Perren, adding that the overall survival data for ICON 7 will not be mature for a further two years.


ecancertv interviews with Tim Perren and Jonathan Ledermann coming soon.