Prof Luca Gianni talks to ecancer.tv about the randomised AVEREL trial which evaluated the use of bevacizumab (trade name Avastin) in women with HER2-positive locally recurrent metastatic breast cancer. The study demonstrated that combining bevacizumab with standard therapy with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and docetaxel improves progression-free survival (PFS) by an average of three months. Additional exploratory analyses of plasma VEGF-A levels suggest a potentially predictive effect. Patients with higher plasma VEGF-A levels experienced a greater benefit from the bevacizumab regimen.