A trial looking at either ixabepilone or paclitaxel with bevacizumab for breast cancer that has come back (CA163115)

Cancer type:

Breast cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Phase 2

This trial looked at either ixabepilone with bevacizumab (Avastin) or paclitaxel (Taxol) with bevacizumab for breast cancer that has come back after treatment.

More about this trial

The main treatments for breast cancer are surgery, radiotherapy, hormone therapy and chemotherapy. You may have one, some, or all of these treatments and they generally work well. But unfortunately breast cancer can come back after treatment.

Doctors may treat breast cancer that has come back with chemotherapy or hormone therapy. Paclitaxel is a chemotherapy drug they often use. Ixabepilone is one of a group of chemotherapy drugs known as epothilone analogues. They work in a similar way to paclitaxel.

Bevacizumab is a type of biological therapy called a monoclonal antibody. In this trial, the researchers looked at different ways of having ixabepilone and bevacizumab. They also looked at a combination of paclitaxel and bevacizumab.

The aims of the study were to

Find out how well the different drug combinations work for breast cancer that has come back after treatment
Learn more about the side effects

Summary of results

The trial team found that ixabepilone and bevacizumab could be a useful treatment for breast cancer that has come back after treatment.

This trial recruited 123 people. They were put into 1 of 3 groups at random.

Group A had ixabepilone 3 times in every 4 weeks, and bevacizumab once every 2 weeks
Group B had ixabepilone and bevacizumab once every 3 weeks
Group C had paclitaxel 3 times in every 4 weeks, and bevacizumab once every 2 weeks

The research team found that the cancer responded to treatment in

22 out of 46 people (48%) in group A
32 out of 45 people (71%) in group B
20 out of 32 people (63%) in group C

When they looked at how many people were living a year after treatment, they found it was similar in all 3 groups

They also looked at the side effects. They found that more people in group B had serious side effects. The most common side effect was a drop in the number of white blood cells called neutrophils. This affected

7 people in group A (16%)
27 people in group B (60%)
7 people in group C (22%)

So overall the research team found that having ixabepilone every 3 weeks worked best but caused more side effects. Having ixabepilone 3 times in every 4 weeks didn’t work as well, but caused fewer side effects. They concluded that ixabepilone and bevacizumab was promising as a treatment for breast cancer that has spread.

We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the trial. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.