LOS ANGELES, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say the drug Avastin may improve the survival rates for recurrent glioblastomas -- the most aggressive type of primary brain tumor.
Senior author Dr. Timothy Cloughesy, director of the Neuro-Oncology Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center says the drug helped improve survival rates in the case of glioblastomas that had recurred so dramatically, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accelerated approval of this use of the drug.
The report, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, said the targeted therapy Avastin, alone and in combination with the chemotherapy drug CPT-11, significantly increased response rates, progression-free survival times and survival rates in patients whose brain cancer had recurred.
"This is a huge breakthrough for us. In all the years we've been treating recurrent glioblastomas using conventional and investigational agents, we've never had anything like the responses we're seeing with Avastin," Cloughesy says in a statement.
"You just don't get these kinds of responses in this patient population. We're seeing dramatic improvements."
