Bevacizumab is a biologic anti-cancer agent that prevents tumor growth by interfering with the formation of new blood vessels.
Now, a new study found that bevacizumab may have the potential to improve the efficacy of standard combination chemotherapy in ovarian cancer.
Ovarian cancer or cancer of the ovary is the fifth most common cancer in women and I reckon one of the deadliest.
Almost 70% of ovarian cancer patients fail to win against the disease despite chemotherapy.
According to Dr. Bram Goldstein, co-author of the study, whose findings are published in Vol. 17 Issue 4 of International Journal of Gynecological Cancer:
“The results from our …read more

Bevacizumab – popularly marketed as Avastin® – was the first USFDA-approved biological therapy designed to inhibit the formation of new blood vessels in tumors (angiogenesis inhibitor).
The bevacizumab-chemotherapy combination has been found to survival in patients with metastatic colorectal and non–small-cell lung cancer, though previous studies have suggested that patients on this combo treatment are at an increased for arterial blood clots.
But now, treatment with chemotherapy and bavacizumab has been found to be associated with a greater risk of blood clots in patients’ arteries compared to treatment with bevacizumab alone.
As published online on August 7 in the Journal of the National …read more

A relatively new cancer drug – Avastin (bevacizumab) – currently used in treatment of lung and colorectal cancers, has recently been found to slow the growth of the most common and deadly form of brain cancer -gliomas.
Such is the finding of a Duke University Medical Center pilot study in which the researchers tested the effectiveness of Avastin in conjunction with a standard chemotherapy agent in patients with recurrent cancerous brain tumors called gliomas.
…found that the two drugs together halted tumor growth up to twice as long as comparative therapies.
Though gliomas remain incurable in nearly all cases, the combined drug therapy …read more