Addition of Bevacizumab Maintains Quality of Life in Cervical Cancer

the Cancer Therapy Advisor take:

GOG 240, a phase 3 trial, demonstrated that the addition of bevacizumab to chemotherapy for advanced cervical cancer significantly improved overall and progression-free survival compared to chemotherapy alone. In this study, investigators sought to analyze the patient-reported outcomes from the GOG 240 study.

There were 452 patients analyzed in the study, and the patients had primary stage IVB or recurrent or persistent carcinoma of the cervix and a GOG performance status of 0-1. Patients were randomly assigned into four treatment groups: cisplatin and paclitaxel with or without bevacizumab, or paclitaxel and topotecan with or without bevacizumab.

Treatment cycles were repeated every 21 days until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity was seen. The primary endpoints of the study were overall survival and safety. The primary quality of life endpoint was the score on the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Cervix Trial Outcome Index (FACT-Cx TOI).

Results showed that there was a decline in patient-reported outcome completions, but completion rates did not differ significantly between the treatment regimens (p=0.78).

Also, the baseline FACT-Cx TOI scores did not differ significantly in patients who received bevacizumab versus those who did not (P=0.27); patients receiving bevacizumab plus chemotherapy reported an average FACT-Cx TOI score of 1.2 points lower (98.75% CI: 4.1 to 1.7; P=0.30).

Overall, the authors concluded the overall survival and progression-free survival that was attributed to the addition of bevacizumab did not correlate to significant worsening of health-related quality of life.

Therefore, patients who respond well to anti-angiogenesis therapy could benefit from other novel therapies at disease progression.