[Usefulness of bevacizumab combination chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer]

Bevacizumab combination chemotherapy prolongs progression-free survival but not overall survival in patients with advanced breast cancer. Here, we report our experience with bevacizumab plus paclitaxel treatment in our department. We believe that this regimen confers some benefit to a patient's quality of life. Nineteen patients with inoperable, metastatic, or recurrent breast cancer were treated with bevacizumab plus paclitaxel. The median age was 55 years; all patients were females. Of the 19 patients, 14, 1, and 4 had luminal A, luminal B, and triple-negative type tumors, respectively. The response rate was 63%: partial response (PR) was obtained in 12 patients, stable disease (SD) in 5 patients, and progressive disease( PD) in 2 patients. Adverse events of Grade 3 or more were high blood pressure( 4 patients), peripheral neuropathy (1 patient), and neutropenia (9 patients). All side effects could be tolerated. There was a high rate of response to bevacizumab plus paclitaxel chemotherapy. We believe that this chemotherapy is useful in patients with more advanced breast cancer in whom a high response rate is required.