The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) recently updated the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines for Oncology (NCCN Guidelines™) for Breast Cancer to affirm the recommendation regarding the use of bevacizumab (Avastin®, Genentech/Roche) in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer.
The NCCN Guidelines Panel for Breast Cancer affirmed its existing recommendation of bevacizumab in combination with paclitaxel (Taxol®, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company) as an appropriate therapeutic option for metastatic breast cancer with the evidence designation 2A meaning that it is based on lower level evidence and uniform agreement of the panel as to its appropriateness.
The Panel revised the related footnote, it now states, "Randomized clinical trials in metastatic breast cancer document that the addition of bevacizumab to some first or second line chemotherapy agents modestly improves time to progression and response rates but does not improve overall survival. The time to progression impact may vary among cytotoxic agents and appears greatest with bevacizumab in combination with weekly paclitaxel."
The NCCN Guidelines™ are developed and updated through an evidence-based process with explicit review of the scientific evidence integrated with expert judgment by multidisciplinary panels of expert physicians from NCCN Member Institutions. The most recent version of this and all the NCCN Guidelines are available free of charge at NCCN.org. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients™: Breast Cancer is now available at NCCN.com.
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