During recent years clear progress has been made in support of tumor pathology. However, the treatment of metastatic disease is now a real therapeutic challenge. Among the new therapeutic strategies, blocking angiogenesis has been the subject of numerous clinical trials. However, if this approach was validated in 2004 by the approval of the first humanized anti-VEGF antibody (bevacizumab or Avastin(®), Roche, 2004), the pre-clinical and clinical studies conducted in the last 5 years have moderated the enthusiasm that these therapies had led in the early 2000s. In November 2011, the US Food and drug administration (FDA) revoke the agency's approval of the breast cancer indication for Avastin(®) because of benefit-risk balance appears negative. This review describes successively the mechanisms of action of antiangiogenic agents, the main anti-angiogenic drugs and the theoretical advantages and practical limitations of these therapies.
Keywords: angiogenesis; anti-angiogenic therapies; cancers; monoclonal antibodies; resistance; tyrosine kinase inhibitor.