From Clinical Oncology December 2011

Stockholm—Progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) improved by almost 50% when pemetrexed was added to maintenance therapy with bevacizumab, according to an interim analysis of the AVAPERL trial.

At the recent European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress, researchers reported that median PFS increased from 6.6 months in patients receiving bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech) alone to 10.2 months when pemetrexed (Alimta, Eli Lilly) was added (abstract LBA34). When evaluated from the end of induction therapy, PFS was doubled with the combination compared with bevacizumab monotherapy.

“This is a benefit of unprecedented magnitude,” said Fabrice Barlesi, MD, a thoracic oncologist at the University of the Mediterranean in Marseille, France, who presented the data. “Overall survival [OS] data favor maintenance therapy with bevacizumab and pemetrexed, but the data are currently immature. The results strongly favor the use of bevacizumab plus pemetrexed as continuation maintenance therapy in patients with [biologically] nonselected metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.”