Long-term use of the cancer medication Avastin may help women with ovarian cancer live longer without their cancer progressing, new research shows. Experimental drug NKTR-102 produced substantial benefits for 48% of women with advanced ovarian cancer in a trial of 68 women.

~ The cancer drug Avastin helped prevent ovarian cancer from worsening in women who received it for several months following chemotherapy, according to a study presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the New York Times reports. The study enrolled 1,873 women newly diagnosed with stage three or four ovarian cancer who had previously undergone surgery to remove cancerous tumors. Participants were divided into three groups: in one group, women received standard chemotherapy treatment and a placebo; the second group received chemotherapy and Avastin; and women in the third group received chemotherapy and Avastin plus up to 10 additional months of Avastin treatment. It was a median of 14.1 months before cancer worsened among women taking Avastin long term, compared with 10.3 months for women in the chemotherapy and placebo group. Short-term use of Avastin -- made by Roche's Genentech unit -- plus chemotherapy did not produce better results than treatment with just chemotherapy (Pollack, New York Times, 6/7). Women who received Avastin had higher rates of side effects, including high blood pressure, bleeding and gastrointestinal problems. Roche said it is discussing the data with FDA (Beasley, Reuters, 6/6). Avastin already is approved for multiple cancer types, including breast cancer. Some experts expressed caution about the findings, noting that it remains unclear whether longer-term Avastin treatment increases survival and quality of life (New York Times, 6/7). The National Cancer Institute oversaw and organized the study, which was funded by Roche (Maugh, Los Angeles Times, 6/7).

~ A second study presented at the ASCO meeting found that 48% of women with advanced ovarian cancer who received one of two dose schedules of the experimental treatment NKTR-102 experienced sustained treatment benefits, Reuters reports. Twenty-three percent of women who received one dose every three weeks experienced "substantial" shrinkage in tumor size. In addition, 38% saw a reduction in the ovarian cancer biomarker CA-125. The study enrolled 68 patients. NKTR-102, created by Nektar Therapeutics, is also being tested in two Phase II clinical trials for patients with metastatic breast cancer and colorectal cancer (Kelly, Reuters, 6/6).

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