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Cancer Therapy: Clinical |
Authors' Affiliations: 1 Division of Hematology/Oncology, 2 Comprehensive Breast Health Services, and 3 Center for Biostatistics, Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio; 4 University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, Colorado; and 5 Cancer Treatment Evaluation Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
Requests for reprints: Charles L. Shapiro, B 405 Starling-Loving, 320 West 10th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210. Phone: 614-293-7530; Fax: 614-293-7529; E-mail: shapiro-1{at}medctr.osu.edu.
| Abstract |
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Patients and Methods: Twenty-seven MBC patients received i.v. bevacizumab at 10 mg/kg on days 1 and 15 in combination with i.v. docetaxel 35 mg/m2 on days 1, 8, and 15 of a 28-day cycle. Primary end points were to assess toxicity, overall response rate, and progression-free survival. A secondary end point was to assess the relationship between plasma endothelial and cell adhesion markers and clinical outcomes.
Results: One-hundred fifty-eight treatment cycles were administered with a median of six cycles (range 1-15 cycles) per patient. The most common grade 4 toxicities per patient were as follows: 2 (7%)pulmonary embolus, 1 (4%)febrile neutropenia, and 1 (4%)infection; grade 3 toxicities were 4 (15%)neutropenia, 4 (15%)fatigue, 2 (7%)neuropathy, 2 (7%)athralgias, 2 (7%)stomatitis, 1 (7%)pleural effusion, and 1 (4%)hypertension. The overall response rate was 52% [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 32-71%], median response duration was 6.0 months (95% CI, 4.6-6.5 months), and the median progression-free survival was 7.5 months (95% CI, 6.2-8.3 months). In hypothesis-generating univariate and limited multivariate analyses, E-selectin was statistically significantly associated with response to the combination.
Conclusion: Bevazicumab in combination with weekly docetaxel is active with acceptable toxicities in MBC. Additional studies evaluating E-selectin as a marker of response to bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy are warranted.
With respect to breast cancer, bevacizumab alone has very modest antitumor activity in pretreated metastatic breast cancer (MBC; ref. 8). In a phase III trial in MBC patients who had received prior chemotherapy for metastatic disease, the addition of bevacizumab to capecitabine did not improve PFS or overall survival, but was associated with a doubling of the response rate (9). More recently, a phase III trial in MBC patients without prior treatment for metastases showed statistically significant improvements in response rate, PFS, and overall survival for the combination of weekly paclitaxel and bevacizumab versus paclitaxel alone (10).
Docetaxel is among the most active drugs in breast cancer. Docetaxel also has antiangiogenic activity and potentiates the activity of antiangiogenic drugs (1113). In vitro and in vivo preclinical studies show that VEGF protects endothelial cells against the antiangiogenic effects of docetaxel and this effect is inhibited by anti-VEGF monoclonal antibody (14). These observations provided the rationale for initiating a phase II trial with docetaxel and bevacizumab as either first- or second-line treatment in MBC patients. In an exploratory analysis, the relationship between clinical outcomes and plasma endothelial and adhesion cell markers and was evaluated.
| Patients and Methods |
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2, leukocytes
3,000/µL, absolute neutrophil count
1,500/µL, platelets
100,000/µL, total bilirubin
institutional upper limit of normal, transaminases
2.5 times upper limit of normal, and creatinine
upper limit of normal or creatinine clearance
60 mL/min for patients with creatinine above upper limit of normal. No more than one prior chemotherapy regimen for MBC was permitted. In the event that prior therapy contained a taxane, at least 6 months must have elapsed since completing prior taxane treatment. Written informed consent was required and the institutional review boards of the participating centers approved the study. Patients were excluded for having a known allergy to polysorbate 80 or docetaxel, history of uncontrolled seizures, brain metastases, stroke, bleeding diathesis, coagulopathy, proteinuria >500 mg/24-hour urine collection, or a recent history (within 10 days before study treatment) of aspirin or anticoagulant therapy. Other exclusions were uncontrolled infection, symptomatic cardiac failure, unstable angina, cardiac arrhythmia, and uncontrolled hypertension. In addition, patients were not eligible if they had a major surgical procedure, open biopsy, nonhealing wound, or significant traumatic injury within 28 days, or placement of a vascular access device within 7 days before study treatment.
Study treatment. Patients received 10 mg/kg bevacizumab i.v. on days 1 and 15 in combination with 35 mg/m2 i.v. of docetaxel on days 1, 8, and 15 repeated every 28 days or one treatment cycle. Patients having clinical benefit after six cycles received bevacizumab alone until disease progression. The first dose of bevacizumab was administered over 90 minutes with careful monitoring of vital signs every 15 minutes during the infusion, and every 30 minutes for 3 hours after the infusion. If the first infusion was without incident, the second dose was administered over 60 minutes and subsequent doses over 30 minutes. A 1-hour docetaxel infusion was administered after the bevacizumab infusion. Oral dexamethasone 8 mg was given 12 hours before, immediately before, and 12 hours after the docetaxel infusion. If the patient developed febrile neutropenia in any treatment cycle, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (Neupogen) was allowed in the subsequent cycles at the discretion of the treating physician.
Docetaxel dose reductions of 15% were permitted for febrile neutropenia or grade 3 or 4 nonhematologic toxicity. Continued study treatment was contingent upon all toxicities resolving to grade
1 within 2 weeks. If toxicity failed to resolve within 2 weeks, the patient was removed from study. There was no modification of the bevacizumab dose. A urine dipstick for proteinuria was done before each treatment cycle. Any patient developing an increase in proteinuria had a 24-hour urine collection for total protein. Patients who developed >2 g proteinuria/24 hours did not receive further bevacizumab until the proteinuria was <2 g/24 hour. Bevacizumab was discontinued in patients who developed grade 4 hypertension, or uncontrolled hypertension despite oral antihypertensives. Bevacizumab was held for
grade 3 liver function tests until the abnormalities recovered to
grade 1. If there was a recurrence of
grade 3 liver function tests, bevacizumab was discontinued.
Study evaluations. The baseline evaluation included complete history and physical examination, assessment of performance status, complete blood count and differential, metabolic profile, coagulation studies, electrocardiogram, urine dipstick, and serum pregnancy test in women of childbearing age. Computed tomography scans of head, chest, abdomen, and bone scan comprised the baseline assessment. Response to treatment was evaluated every two treatment cycles using Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (15). All tumor responses were confirmed by repeat imaging 4 to 6 weeks after the initial documentation. Toxicities were graded using the Common Toxicity Criteria version 2.0.
Biological correlates. Plasma endothelial and adhesion cell markers, including E-selectin, P-selectin, immune cell adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, platelet derived growth factor, fibroblast-derived growth factor, matrix metalloproteinase-2, and matrix metalloproteinase-9 were evaluated at baseline (within 14 days before treatment) and after one cycle (pretreatment cycle 2, day 1). The assays were done in the Translational Research Laboratories of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center under the direction of Dr. S. Gail Eckhardt. Each marker was assayed in triplicate wells using commercially available ELISA kits according to the instructions of the manufacturer. The interday and intraday precision and the coefficient of variation did not exceed 20%.
Statistical considerations. The primary objectives were to assess toxicity, response rate, and PFS. A secondary end point was to explore the relationship between plasma endothelial and adhesion cell markers and response rate and PFS. PFS was estimated using Kaplan-Meier curves. Logistic regression was used to evaluate models relating plasma cell markers to response. Cox proportional hazard models investigated relationships between plasma markers and PFS.
The trial used Simon's (16) optimal two-stage design for phase II trials. A response rate of
60%, which is an
50% improvement over patients receiving weekly docetaxel alone (17, 18), was considered sufficient to proceed with further investigation of the combination, whereas a response rate of
35% would be of little clinical interest. If seven or more responses were observed in the first 16 patients, 11 additional patients were enrolled (p0 = 0.35, p1 = 0.6,
= 0.10, ß = 0.10). Further evaluation of the drug combination would be justified if a minimum of 13 patients responded to treatment.
| Results |
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Toxicity. Most of the toxicities were
grade 2 (Table 2
). One (4%) patient had grade 3 hypertension, one (4%) patient had febrile neutropenia, and two (7%) patients had docetaxel dose reductions. Nine (33%) patients discontinued treatment for the following reasons: two (7%)pulmonary embolism, one (4%)serious bacterial infection, one (4%)pleural effusion that required pleurodesis, one (4%)grade 3 hypertension, one (4%)persistent dyspnea of undetermined etiology, one (4%)nonresolving neuropathy, one (4%)required hip arthroplasty, and one (4%)required radiation for bone metastases. There were no treatment-related deaths.
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| Discussion |
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Table 6 describes other trials of bevacizumab with chemotherapy in MBC. Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group 2100 is the largest randomized trial and included only patients without prior chemotherapy (10). The observed increase in PFS (hazard ratio, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.41-0.61; P < 0.001) and overall survival (hazard ratio, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.49-0.92; P = 0.01) is consistent with randomized trials in metastatic colon cancer (5, 6) and advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer (7) in patients without prior chemotherapy. However, when bevacizumab was combined with capecitabine, there was a doubling of the response rate but no improvement in PFS or overall survival in patients, most of whom received prior chemotherapy for metastases (9).
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E-selectin is required for the antiangiogenic activity of endostatin, a potent angiogenesis inhibitor, and may predict or modulate endostatin efficacy in antiangiogenic therapy (35). Few studies have examined the role of E-selectin to predict response to therapy and none has included bevacizumab or antiangiogenic drugs (36, 37). In a preliminary hypothesis-generating exploratory analysis, we sought to identify whether plasma endothelial and adhesion cell markers might predict response to bevacizumab and weekly docetaxel. Of the markers that were measured, higher-pretreatment E-selectin and ICAM-1, and a greater decline in these markers after one treatment cycle, were significantly associated with response in univariate analyses. However, none of the markers correlated with PFS (data not shown).
Because of the relatively small sample size, multivariate models were limited to no more than two variables. E-selectin, but not ICAM-1, retained significance after controlling for other variables thought to be associated with response to chemotherapy in MBC patients (38). The ORs corresponding to E-selectin were consistent in each set of multivariate models. This suggests that E-selectin may be an independent predictive factor for response. However, because of the trial design, it was not possible to determine whether E-selectin predicts response to bevacizumab or docetaxel alone.
The analysis of E-selectin has several limitations, including the small sample size, missing data points, the multiple markers evaluated, and the lack of correlation to PFS. Nonetheless, the preclinical data supporting the role of E-selectin in angiogenesis, and the preliminary results of the current trial, justify larger prospective trials evaluating E-selectin as a marker of response bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy.
Our results support the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group 2100 trial (10) and add important information about the safety and efficacy of bevacizumab in combination with weekly docetaxel. Trials are planned to evaluate bevacizumab in adjuvant setting in which the magnitude of the benefits may be greatest.
| Footnotes |
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Note: Presented in part at San Antonio Breast Cancer Meetings 2003.
Received 11/25/05; revised 2/ 1/06; accepted 2/28/06.
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. Am J Pathol 1997;150:130714.[Abstract]This article has been cited by other articles:
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