10 additional months of survival when continuing with Avastin at progression, study suggests

This may be highly relevant to some of you who are stage IV and using bevacizumab (Avastin).

From July 2011 Issue of Hematology & Oncology

Title: Highlights in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer From the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting June 3–7, 2011 Chicago, Illinois

At the 2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, Dr. Grothey posed the question (starting on page 11) “Is there a rationale to continue bevacizumab (Avastin) beyond progression?” He points out that review of two studies suggests that continuing Avastin at disease progression, instead of stopping its use, may add 10 months to overall survival. There are considerations like the side-effects, but studies currently show that Avastin added to FOLFOX during 1st line treatment adds about 4 to 5 months too overall survival, so an additional 10 months is huge.

At some point almost all patients like my wife will experience progression of the disease, so this is something we will take up with the Onc, as the current plan is to start maintenance Avastin in May assuming surgery is not an option, and there has been no discussion about treatment during the disease progression phase.

Hope this is of value to some of you. The pace of research into biological interventions is so fast now that an additional year may translate into an even longer survival if one lives long enough to take advantage of future discoveries and interventions.