Optimal bevacizumab treatment strategy in advanced ovarian cancer: A review

Abstract

Bevacizumab was the first targeted therapy developed for newly diagnosed and recurrent advanced ovarian cancer (AOC). Although bevacizumab has been approved for the treatment of AOC for several years, identifying patients who may benefit most from this treatment is still debated. Bevacizumab has been associated with improved progression-free survival (PFS) regardless of clinical risk, but in some countries the use of bevacizumab in the treatment of newly diagnosed AOC has been restricted to higher-risk patients (stage III inoperable or suboptimally debulked disease, or stage IV disease); this is primarily due to the findings of exploratory subgroup analyses from phase III trials that suggest only higher-risk patients derive an overall survival (OS) advantage with bevacizumab. Recently reported post hoc analyses from the PAOLA-1 trial of maintenance olaparib plus bevacizumab versus bevacizumab alone for patients with newly diagnosed AOC and homologous recombination deficiency-positive tumors suggested PFS and OS benefit was achieved in both lower-risk (with stage III disease who had undergone upfront surgery and had complete resection) and higher-risk (with stage III disease who had undergone upfront surgery and had residual disease or who had received neoadjuvant chemotherapy, or with stage IV disease) patients, prompting reassessment of the role of bevacizumab in lower-risk patients. This review examines the role of bevacizumab in the AOC treatment pathway by discussing its efficacy and safety in the first-line, maintenance and recurrent settings, and evaluates the clinical implications of bevacizumab use across risk groups and lines of therapy.