An update on biomarkers of potential benefit with bevacizumab for breast cancer treatment: Do we make progress?

Xu Liang; Huiping Li; Florence Coussy; Celine Callens; Florence Lerebours

doi:10.21147/j.issn.1000-9604.2019.04.03

An update on biomarkers of potential benefit with bevacizumab for breast cancer treatment: Do we make progress?

Chin J Cancer Res. 2019 Aug;31(4):586-600. doi: 10.21147/j.issn.1000-9604.2019.04.03.

Authors

Xu Liang^{1

2}, Huiping Li¹, Florence Coussy³, Celine Callens², Florence Lerebours⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (Ministry of Education/Beijing), Department of Breast Oncology, Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute, Beijing 100142, China.
² Pharmacogenomic Unit, Department of Genetics, Curie Institute, PSL Research University, Paris 75005, France.
³ Department of Medical Oncology, Institut Curie, PSL Research University, Paris 75005, France.
⁴ Department of Medical Oncology, Institut Curie, René Huguenin Hospital, Saint-Cloud 92210, France.

PMID: 31564802
PMCID: PMC6736652
DOI: 10.21147/j.issn.1000-9604.2019.04.03

Abstract

As the first monoclonal antibody against vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), bevacizumab (BEV) is a definitely controversial antiangiogenic therapy in breast cancer. The initial excitement over improvements in progression-free survival (PFS) with BEV was tempered by an absence of overall survival (OS) benefit and serious adverse effects. Missing targeted population urged us to identify the predictive biomarkers for BEV efficacy. In this review we focus on the research in breast cancer and provide recent investigations on clinical, radiological, molecular and gene profiling markers of BEV efficacy, including the new results from randomized phase III clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of BEV in combination with comprehensive biomarker analyses. Current evidences indicate some predictive values for genetic variants, molecular imaging, VEGF pathway factors or associated factors in peripheral blood and gene profiling. The current challenge is to validate those potential biomarkers and implement them into clinical practice.

Keywords: Bevacizumab; biomarker; breast cancer; efficacy.