The following article features coverage from the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Click here to read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s conference coverage.

Bevacizumab added to a standard platinum doublet chemotherapy regimen did not improve overall survival (OS), though progression-free survival (PFS) was improved, among patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN), according to data presented at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.1

Athanassios Argiris, MD, of the Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, presented data from the phase 3 E1305 study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00588770), in which 403 patients were randomly assigned to receive investigator’s choice of chemotherapy (arm A; 200 patients) or chemotherapy plus bevacizumab (arm B; 203 patients).

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Prior bevacizumab was also not allowed.

With a median follow up of 23.1 months, OS was not significantly different between the 2 arms: median OS was 11 months for patients in arm A vs 12.6 months for patients in arm B (P = .13).

Median PFS was, however, significantly improved for patients receiving bevacizumab: 6.1 months vs 4.4 months for arm A (P = .0012).

Objective response rate was also higher for patients receiving bevacizumab (36% vs 25% for arm A (P = .013).

Grade 3 or worse bleeding was higher for patients receiving bevacizumab (7.7% vs 3.5% for arm A; P = 0.08).

Dr Argiris noted that patients in the control group may have had longer-than-expected survival due to factors such as supportive care, patient selection, and regimens used. “Although the primary endpoint was not met, patients on bevacizumab had numerically higher OS at landmark time points,” he said.

RELATED: Phase 1 Pembrolizumab, Cisplatin, and IMRT for Head and Neck Cancer

“Targeting of the VEGF [vascular endothelial growth factor] pathway should continue to be a subject of investigation in SCCHN,” he concluded.

Read more of Cancer Therapy Advisor‘s coverage of the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting by visiting the conference page.

Reference

  1. Argiris A, Li S, Savvides P, et al. Phase III randomzied trial of chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab (B) in patients (pts) with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (R/M SCCHN) : survival analysis of E1305, an ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group trial. J Clin Oncol. 2017;35(suppl; abstr 6000).

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ASCO 2017 Head and Neck Cancer