Avastin Shows No Benefit Against Early Stage Colon Cancer

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Participants were randomly chosen to receive either standard chemotherapy for six months, or chemotherapy for the same period of time plus Avastin. Some patients then went on to receive six more months of Avastin.

After a follow-up of about three years, 77.4 percent of volunteers receiving Avastin were disease-free versus a very similar 75.5 percent of patients in the control group.

Other experts inserted notes of caution.

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"Avastin in an adjuvant setting in this trial did not meet its endpoint which is a good surrogate endpoint for overall survival," said Dr. Vincent Chung, assistant professor of medical oncology at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. "We need to tease out if any subgroups are responding better."

"With biological agents [such as Avastin], we definitely see improvements with metastatic cancer if we continue giving the drug," Chung added. "In adjuvant settings when the disease is gone, the question is how to we use biologics.''

"I would be concerned about side effects," added Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Despite its vaunted status in treating a number of different tumor types, Avastin has been associated with a number of troublesome side effects, including arterial clots, heart attacks, stroke and bowel perforations.

Wolmark said his group hoped to start a trial soon looking at Avastin in the same population over two years.

A second study, also presented Saturday at ASCO, essentially discarded the notion that patients newly diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer should get surgery right away. Instead, the trial found that these patients can simply receive standard chemotherapy and wait until the tumor is actually causing problems -- such as a bowel perforation, intestinal blockage or bleeding -- before initiating any surgery. Early surgery is often performed in these patients to deal with complications, not to cure the disease, the researchers noted.

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