Bevacizumab combination therapy in heavily pretreated, recurrent cervical cancer

Abstract: Objective. : To report the utility of the monoclonal, anti-vascular endothelial growth factor antibody bevacizumab in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy for women with recurrent cervical cancer. Methods. : A retrospective analysis of women with recurrent cervical cancer treated with bevacizumab combination therapy was performed. Results. : Six patients were identified. The patients had a median of 3 prior regimens. All of the patients had multisite, metastatic disease. The combination regimen included IV 5-fluorouracil in 5 (83%) patients and capecitabine in one (17%) subject. Treatment was well tolerated. Grade 4 toxicity occurred in one patient who developed neutropenic sepsis. Clinical benefit (CR, PR, or SD) was noted in 67% of the subjects. This included 1 (17%) complete response, 1 (17%) partial response and two (33%) patients with stable disease. The median time to progression for the four women who demonstrated clinical benefit was 4.3 months. Conclusions. : Combination bevacizumab is well tolerated and displayed encouraging anti-tumor activity in heavily pretreated recurrent cervical cancer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]