Avastin helps breast cancer patients: study

Combining the drug Avastin with standard chemotherapy can keep breast cancer under control for longer in patients with advanced disease, scientists said on Wednesday.

Avastin, which is made by Roche Holding AG and its majority-owned U.S. biotech arm Genentech Inc, blocks the growth of new blood vessels that are needed for the cancer to grow and spread, or metastasize, beyond the breast.

When doctors combined the drug with the chemotherapy treatment Taxol in a study of 722 patients they found the cancer was stable for 11.4 months in women who received the drug combo compared with 6.11 months in patients who had only been given Taxol.

Dr. Robin Zon, of Michiana Hematology-Oncology, PC in South Bend, Indiana who worked on the study, said combining the treatments kept the cancer under control for almost twice as long without producing side effects.

"These results are good news for people with breast cancer," said Zon who presented the results of the trial, sponsored by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, at the 5th European Breast Cancer Conference in Nice, France.

"The next step will be introducing the new drug in patients whose breast cancer has not progressed to metastasis," Zon added in a statement.

Avastin, which is known generically as bevacizumab, has also been shown to work in a drug combination against colorectal cancer and to extend the life of people with lung cancer.

The two drugs fight the cancer on different fronts. The chemotherapy treatment attacks the tumor while Avastin interferes with the formation of blood vessels to starve it of nutrients.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women. More than a million cases occur worldwide each year, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France.

The illness is treated with surgery and radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hormone treatment, or a combination of treatments.