Bevacizumab for Advanced EGFR-Mutant Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Identifying mechanisms to delay development of resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in EGFR-mutated non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a high clinical research priority.

To test whether adding the antiangiogenic agent bevacizumab to standard first-line therapy with erlotinib improves outcomes in this setting, investigators conducted a multicenter, randomized, phase II trial in which 88 treatment-naive, stage 4 NSCLC patients with EGFR mutations (del exon 19, exon 21 L858) were assigned to erlotinib (150 mg daily) with or without bevacizumab (15 mg/kg every 3 weeks). Of these patients 85% were white, 70% were women, 55% were never smokers, and 67% had deletion exon 19 EGFR mutation.

At medi…