Bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer patients: a population-based observational study by the Ibaraki thoracic integrative (POSITIVE) research group.

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), we performed a population-based observational study. The efficacy and safety of bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy for NSCLC patients were evaluated at 14 sites (17 hospital departments) in a prefecture of Japan between December 2009 and August 2011. Complete data sets were obtained from 159 patients with NSCLC. The median age was 66 years, and 34.0 % of the patients were 70 years or older. The overall response rate to bevacizumab therapy was 41.6 %, and the disease control rate was 78.5 %. In 88 patients who received bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy as first-line therapy, the response and disease control rates were 55.0 and 78.9 %, respectively. The incidence of clinically significant (grade 3 or more) adverse events was generally low: proteinuria occurred in 2 (1.3 %) patients, hypertension in 2 (1.3 %), hemoptysis in 1 (0.6 %), and interstitial pneumonia in 1 (0.6 %). The time to treatment failure (TTF) in the 159 patients was 169 days, and the median overall survival (OS) was 580 days. In patients who received bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy as first-line therapy, the TTF and OS were 152 and 520 days, respectively. The difference in TTF between patients who received bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy as first-line therapy and those who received it as second-line or later-line therapy was not significant (p = 0.4971). With regard to first-line therapy, the difference in TTF between patients treated with carboplatin + pemetrexed + bevacizumab and those treated with carboplatin + paclitaxel + bevacizumab was not significant (p = 0.9435). We deduced that bevacizumab-containing chemotherapy is effective against NSCLC and also tolerable in clinical practice.