Avastin--New drug for Brain Cancer

PBJ Austin

Hello all,

A friend sent me this article about Avastin, a new drug for brain cancer. Have any of you used this drug yet, or asked your doctors about it? Here's a link to the article:

http://www.thereporter.com/wirenews/ci_12044014

kempenl

Avastin
I found this: "google it" --- I like the idea - instead of radiation. My husband has AA - grade 3. We haven't had treatment yet, just surgery.

Avastin, known generically as bevacizumab, is the first approved therapy designed to inhibit angiogenesis, the process by which new blood vessels develop and carry vital nutrients to a tumor. It is approved so far to treat certain metastatic colon cancers and non-small cell lung cancer.

"Bevacizumab is an important drug for us," said Marc Chamberlain, M.D., author of the study published in the April 15 edition of the journal Cancer. "Of all of the targeted therapies for gliomas, this has been the most promising. And this is practice changing."

Therapy for treating recurrent high-grade gliomas is palliative. All patients with these high-grade tumors eventually die of their cancer. However, bevacizumab has the potential to be the best palliative treatment, according to Chamberlain, who is director of the Neuro-oncology Program at the SCCA and a professor of neurology and neurological surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Chamberlain said he expects that patients treated with the drug will have a marked improvement in their quality of life because the use of steroids, a common treatment that has significant side effects, can be greatly reduced or even eliminated.

"While treatment with Avastin does dramatically improve survival time, the time that patients have left is of better quality and less about living with the disease itself," Chamberlain said. In this study, the patients, ages 24-60, received an infusion of bevacizumab every two weeks for an average of 14.5 cycles (range was two to 39 cycles). Fourteen (64 percent) patients showed a partial response to the medicine as shown on radiographic scans. Two patients had stable disease and six had progressive disease. Progression-free survival ranged from three to 18 months and survival for the entire group of patients was three to 19 months.

dazedandconfused

kempenl said:

Avastin
I found this: "google it" --- I like the idea - instead of radiation. My husband has AA - grade 3. We haven't had treatment yet, just surgery.

Avastin, known generically as bevacizumab, is the first approved therapy designed to inhibit angiogenesis, the process by which new blood vessels develop and carry vital nutrients to a tumor. It is approved so far to treat certain metastatic colon cancers and non-small cell lung cancer.

"Bevacizumab is an important drug for us," said Marc Chamberlain, M.D., author of the study published in the April 15 edition of the journal Cancer. "Of all of the targeted therapies for gliomas, this has been the most promising. And this is practice changing."

Therapy for treating recurrent high-grade gliomas is palliative. All patients with these high-grade tumors eventually die of their cancer. However, bevacizumab has the potential to be the best palliative treatment, according to Chamberlain, who is director of the Neuro-oncology Program at the SCCA and a professor of neurology and neurological surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Chamberlain said he expects that patients treated with the drug will have a marked improvement in their quality of life because the use of steroids, a common treatment that has significant side effects, can be greatly reduced or even eliminated.

"While treatment with Avastin does dramatically improve survival time, the time that patients have left is of better quality and less about living with the disease itself," Chamberlain said. In this study, the patients, ages 24-60, received an infusion of bevacizumab every two weeks for an average of 14.5 cycles (range was two to 39 cycles). Fourteen (64 percent) patients showed a partial response to the medicine as shown on radiographic scans. Two patients had stable disease and six had progressive disease. Progression-free survival ranged from three to 18 months and survival for the entire group of patients was three to 19 months.

avastin
We just left the oncologist office and he has suggested avastin and temador for my husband. He has stage four lung cancer with recurrent mestastese to the brain. We done every treatment available and it just keeps going. It sounds like this may make him more comfortable these last months. I'd love to hear someone who has experineced it.