Efficacy of Adding Bevacizumab in the First-Line Chemotherapy of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Evidence from Seven Randomized Clinical Trials

Background. Efficacy of adding bevacizumab in first-line chemotherapy of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) has been controversial. The aim of this study is to gather current data to analyze efficacy of adding bevacizumab to the most used combination first-line chemotherapy in mCRC, based on the 2012 meta-analysis reported by Macedo et al. Methods. Medline, EMBASE and Cochrane library, meeting presentations and abstracts were searched. Eligible studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which evaluated first-line chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab in mCRC. The extracting data were included and examined in the meta-analysis according to the type of chemotherapy regimen. Results. Seven trials, totaling 3436 patients, were analyzed. Compared with first-line chemothery alone, the adding of bevacizumab did not show clinical benefit for OS both in first-line therapy and the most used combination chemotherapy (HR = 0.89; 95% CI = 0.78–1.02; P = 0.08; HR = 0.93; 95% CI = 0.83–1.05; P = 0.24). In contrast with OS, the addition of bevacizumab resulted in significant improvement for PFS (HR = 0.68; 95% CI = 0.59–0.78; P < 0.00001). Moreover, it also demonstrated statistical benefit for PFS in the most used combination first-line chemotherapy (HR = 0.84; 95% CI = 0.75–0.94; P = 0.002). And the subgroup analysis indicated only capacitabine-based regimens were beneficial. Conclusions. This meta-analysis shows that the addition of bevacizumab to FOLFOX/FOLFIRI/XELOX regimens might not be beneficial in terms of OS. Benefit has been seen when PFS has been taken into account. In subgroup analysis, benefit adding bevacizumab has been seen when capecitabine-based regimens are used. Further studies are warranted to explore the combination with bevacizumab.