Bevacizumab at Half the Standard Dose Equivalent to Standard Dosing for Glioblastoma

the Cancer Therapy Advisor take:

According to a new study published in the Journal of Neuro-Oncology, researchers from Northern California Kaiser Permanente hospitals have found that dosing bevacizumab at half the standard dose for the treatment of patients with progressive or recurrent glioblastoma multiforme had similar or possibly better efficacy than standard dosing.

The standard dose of bevacizumab is 10mg/kg every 2 weeks for patients with progressive glioblastoma multiforme; however, bevacizumab has only been found to produce improved objective responses, not improved survival.

Because institutions use varying dose schedules, such as 7.5mg/kg every 3 to 4 weeks, researchers conducted a retrospective study to assess effect of various approaches to bevacizumab dosing on overall survival.

Researchers identified 181 patients who received bevacizumab between September 1, 2008 and August 31, 2013. Patients had a median AUC of 3.6mg·wk/kg. Analyses showed that women lived longer than men (P = 0.002), patients older than than 65 years fared worse than younger patients (P = 0.004), and patients treated with less bevacizumab than 3.6mg·wk/kg did better than patients treated above 3.6mg·wk/kg (P = 0.003).

In addition, the median overall survival for patients who started bevacizumab 1 month after chemoradiation was 45 weeks compared with 68 weeks (P = 0.012), and 40 weeks versus 74 weeks (P = 0.0085) for those who started 3 months after chemoradiation.