FDA Approves Avastin for Recurrent platinum-resistant Ovarian Cancer

Alexandra
Alexandra Member Posts: 1,308
edited November 2014 in Ovarian Cancer #1

http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/OvarianCancer/48597

Swiss drugmaker Roche said Friday that the Food and Drug Administration approved its drug Avastin as a treatment for ovarian cancer.

Roche said the FDA approved Avastin in combination with chemotherapy as a treatment for recurrent cases of cancer that are resistant to platinum-based chemotherapy. FDA approval increases the likelihood that insurers now will pay for it.

Avastin is used to treat different types of colon cancer, lung cancer, glioblastoma, kidney cancer and cervical cancer.

Avastin registered 2013 sales of more than 6.2 billion Swiss francs, or about US$6.5 billion, including about $2.7 billion in the United States, according to South San Francisco-based Genentech's Swiss parent company Roche. Through the third quarter of this year, it had worldwide sales of 4.7 billion Swiss francs, or about US$5 billion, including U.S. sales of about $2.1 billion.

Roche applied for Health Canada approval of Avastin for ovarian cancer in late 2013 - it has not yet been approved in Canada nor it is covered by provincial insurance but it is available to buy at patient's expense.

 

Comments

  • poopergirl14052
    poopergirl14052 Member Posts: 1,183 Member
    #2
    About time

     

    yeah...now more of us have a different weapon to fight this ugly cancer....stay strong....Val 

    2014-11-15

  • MrCLINY
    MrCLINY Member Posts: 10
    #3
    Avastin

    Ok, some may have read what I wrote about Avastin before here. Let me again warn that while Avastin seems to help it needs to be monitored very very closly. My wife was having it added to her chemo treatments back last November ( 2013 ). After only two treatments ( it seemed to be helping ), at her third it was not given due to high proteins ( but not because her blood pressure was 172 ). She only got her chemo that day. After she had gone to bed, I stayed up to watch TV. At 12mid night I found her unconscious. Rushing her to the hospital it was found she had swelling on the brain and extremely high blood presure. She spent 10 days in the hospitals norology ICU. Than spent six months on blood presure meds and had to see a whole host of different doctors, from head, heart and kidney.

     So be careful taking Avastin.

      

  • pandagypsy
    pandagypsy Member Posts: 113 Member
    #4
    MrCLINY said:

    Avastin

    Ok, some may have read what I wrote about Avastin before here. Let me again warn that while Avastin seems to help it needs to be monitored very very closly. My wife was having it added to her chemo treatments back last November ( 2013 ). After only two treatments ( it seemed to be helping ), at her third it was not given due to high proteins ( but not because her blood pressure was 172 ). She only got her chemo that day. After she had gone to bed, I stayed up to watch TV. At 12mid night I found her unconscious. Rushing her to the hospital it was found she had swelling on the brain and extremely high blood presure. She spent 10 days in the hospitals norology ICU. Than spent six months on blood presure meds and had to see a whole host of different doctors, from head, heart and kidney.

     So be careful taking Avastin.

      

    Avastin

    I am so sorry to hear about your wife's bad reaction to Avastin. My husband has gone thru the hell of watching helplessly as I had every negative reaction to a drug that was givien to me for neuropathy........your experience sheds new light on the anger I felt when I was told the Dr. put Avastin on my latest chemo mixology and my medicare advantage plan required a co-pay from me of $1000 per treatment ($$$$ I didn't have). The drug company's foundation did not offer financial help for its use in treating ovarian cancer; so I continued the latest round of chemo (I am stage 4, this was a reoccurance after 4 1/2 years) without Avastin.  My last chemo was Oct. 20, and after reading your experiences with Avastin, I am glad that I couldn't receive it.

    2 months post chemo, I am still suffering from too many side effects; I have outrageously high blood pressure as it is, I can't imagine what would have happened if I received Avastin.

    I hope everyone SERIOUSLY reads your post and remebers that just because a drug has been approved, it is not always the answer to our fight against cancer...........

  • kikz
    kikz Member Posts: 1,345 Member
    #5
    This is

    Good to know for future reference.

    Karen

  • scatsm
    scatsm Member Posts: 296 Member
    #6
    I had the pleasure of 6 rounds of avastin

    along with gemzar and carboplatin for my first recurrence. Since it was 3 drugs, it's hard to know which did what, but my blood pressure was sky high. What I mean by this is that even with 3 BP drugs......norvasc, Lisinopril and LASIK, my BP was over 190/90. I often had to be given something to bring it down in the infusion room before chemo. In addition to feeling like **** all the time, I had weird palpitations that, along with the elevated BP, are almost gone 4 months since finishing chemo. Was it worth it? I sure hope so, but how would I know?

    my post chemo Ct scan showed tumors altho my ca125 was 5....my ca125 3 months later is 6.7 and the CT shows no change. I'm in a weird limbo now....not in remission but thankfully no chemo for another 3 months.

    happy holidays to all of you...May we all be healthy in the new year!

  • pandagypsy
    pandagypsy Member Posts: 113 Member
    #7
    scatsm said:

    I had the pleasure of 6 rounds of avastin

    along with gemzar and carboplatin for my first recurrence. Since it was 3 drugs, it's hard to know which did what, but my blood pressure was sky high. What I mean by this is that even with 3 BP drugs......norvasc, Lisinopril and LASIK, my BP was over 190/90. I often had to be given something to bring it down in the infusion room before chemo. In addition to feeling like **** all the time, I had weird palpitations that, along with the elevated BP, are almost gone 4 months since finishing chemo. Was it worth it? I sure hope so, but how would I know?

    my post chemo Ct scan showed tumors altho my ca125 was 5....my ca125 3 months later is 6.7 and the CT shows no change. I'm in a weird limbo now....not in remission but thankfully no chemo for another 3 months.

    happy holidays to all of you...May we all be healthy in the new year!

    the "pleasure" of Avastin

    scatsm, sorry to hear of your "pleasureable" (is that a word?) chemo experience to treat your reoccurance.  My treatment for reoccurance was carboplatin & taxol; maybe a good thing they couldn't add the avastin the dr. wanted to (since I couldn't pay the extra $1000 per treatment). If you had the carbo & gemzar previously, and these are different side effects, I would think they are from avastin........but what do I know?  The dr. tells me that the chemo drugs are accumulative, which I found out thru experience, means to me that the side effects keep getting worse and worse.

    2 months post chemo and officially in "remission" they want to scan me again....WHY???? All I can come up with is that they want to add to my ever increasing balance to my account.  At this time in my life, I have informed the dr. that I AM DONE WITH CHEMO AND NEVER WANT IT AGAIN, since I had too many added side effects, hospital admissions, blood transfusions, etc. and to top it off, NEUROPATHY. My quality of life sucks, we'll see if time helps.  In the meantime, I join you in wishing EVERYONE a happy and most importantly, A HEALTHY NEW YEAR 2015!!!!

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