Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

FDA revokes Avastin for breast cancer

|
|
 
  
Published: Nov. 18, 2011 at 3:19 PM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it is revoking its approval of the use of Avastin for women with breast cancer.

FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said the agency concluded that the drug has not been shown to be safe and effective for that use.

Avastin will still remain on the market as an approved treatment for certain types of colon, lung, kidney and brain cancer, an FDA release said Friday.

"This was a difficult decision. FDA recognizes how hard it is for patients and their families to cope with metastatic breast cancer and how great a need there is for more effective treatments," Hamburg said.

"After reviewing the available studies it is clear that women who take Avastin for metastatic breast cancer risk potentially life-threatening side effects without proof that the use of Avastin will provide a benefit, in terms of delay in tumor growth, that would justify those risks," she said.

The side effects include severe high blood pressure, bleeding and hemorrhaging, heart attack or heart failure, and the development of perforations in different parts of the body such as the nose, stomach, and intestines, the FDA release said.

© 2011 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Protesters, police clash at NATO summit Notable deaths of 2012 2012 Billboard Music Awards
The 137th Preakness Stakes Annual Solar eclipse occurs in U.S. Chen Guangcheng arrives in the U.S.
Additional Health News Stories
1 of 20
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Visited in Washington
View Caption
Veterans etch the names of their friends inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War on May 26, 2012 in Washington, DC. More than 58,000 names of the servicemen who were killed or missing in the war are engraved on The Wall. UPI/Pat Benic
fark
The most common grade at American universities is now an A. It's good to know that all our university...
A high school student who stopped some students from bullying a mentally disabled student on the...
Parent upset after snowflake gets 'humiliating' joke award for not doing her homework. If only there...
This farmer thought he had only lost 99 cows, but then he rounded them up
Photoshop these soccer players
Tropical Storm Beryl enters Florida, immediately becomes depressed. Farkers fully understand why...