A single-arm clinical study of continuous usage of bevacizumab as second-line chemotherapy for Chinese patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Recent studies demonstrated that second-line chemotherapy of continuous usage of bevacizumab after initial disease progression improved survivals in Caucasian patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). We intended to examine this strategy in Chinese patients specifically. Eligible Chinese mCRC patients had disease progression up to 3 months after receiving first-line bevacizumab-included chemotherapy. They were given IV bevacizumab infusion at 5 mg/kg on day 1 every 2 weeks. The primary endpoint is progression-free survival (PFS). One hundred and fourteen eligible patients received second-line chemotherapy plus bevacizumab. Among them, 56.1 % were male patients and median age was 63.4 years (29-81 years). Median follow-up time is 12 months. Median PFS was 7.3 months (95 % CI 3.9-8.9 months), and median OS was 14.7 months (95 % CI 10.7-18.5 months). No patients had complete responses, but 17 patients had partial response and 75 had stable disease. The safety profiles showed that severe adverse events (grades 3-4), such as nausea, proteinuria and hypertension, were often experienced by Chinese mCRC patients received continuous second-line chemotherapy of bevacizumab. Continuous usage of bevacizumab as second-line chemotherapy for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer in China showed equivalent improvement on patients' survival as Caucasian counterparts.