First-line Bevacizumab Plus Capecitabine Valid for HER2- Breast Cancer

Bevacizumab plus capecitabine is valid for the first-line treatment of patients with HER2-negative, locally recurrent, or metastatic breast cancer, according to the final results from a study published in The Lancet Oncology.¹

For this international, open-label study, researchers enrolled 564 patients with measurable or non-measurable HER2-negative, locally recurrent, or metastatic breast cancer, each of whom did not receive prior chemotherapy for locally recurrent or metastatic disease.

Participants were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive bevacizumab 10 mg/kg on days 1 and 15 plus paclitaxel 90 mg/m² on days 1, 8, and 15 every 4 weeks, or bevacizumab 15 mg/kg on day 1 plus capecitabine 1000 mg/m² twice daily on days 1 to 14 every 3 weeks until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

Median overall survival was 30.2 months (95% CI, 25.6-32.6) for bevacizumab plus paclitaxel compared with 26.1 months (95% CI, 22.1-29.0) for bevacizumab plus capecitabine (hazard ratio, 1.02; P = .0070), indicating non-inferiority between the 2 regimens.

Serious adverse events were observed in 23% and 25% of patients in the bevacizumab plus paclitaxel arm and the bevacizumab plus capecitabine arm, respectively. Two patients in the bevacizumab plus paclitaxel group died from the treatment.                                       

Reference

1. Zielinski C, Lang I, Inbar M, et al. Bevacizumab plus paclitaxel versus bevacizumab plus capecitabine as first-line treatment for HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer (TURANDOT): primary endpoint results of a randomised, open-label, non-inferiority, phase 3 trial. Lancet Oncol. 2016 Aug 5. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(16)30154-1 [Epub ahead of print]