Bevacizumab Addition in Neoadjuvant Treatment Increases the Pathological Complete Response Rates in Patients with HER-2 Negative Breast Cancer Especially Triple Negative Breast Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant therapy is administered to breast cancer patients as an induction process before surgery or radiotherapy to reduce tumor size. Human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2) negative breast cancer lacks effective standard target therapy. Bevacizumab has a controversial role in the treatment of breast cancer and we conduct a meta-analysis to evaluate the value of adding bevacizumab in neoadjuvant regimen. METHODS: Potentially eligible studies were retrieved using PubMed, EMBASE and Medline. Clinical characteristics of patients and statistical data with pathological complete response (pCR) data were collected. Then a meta-analysis model was established to investigate the correlation between administration of bevacizumab in neoadjuvant therapy and pCR rates in HER-2 negative breast cancer. RESULTS: Seven eligible studies and 5408 patients were yielded. The pCR rates for “breast” or “breast plus lymph node” were similar. In subgroup analysis, we emphasized on patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). In the criterion of “lesions in breast” the pooled ORs was 1.55 [1.29, 1.86], P<0.00001 and regarding to the evaluation criterion of “lesions in breast and lymph nodes”, the pooled ORs was 1.48 [1.23, 1.78], P<0.0001, in favor of bevacizumab administration. CONCLUSION: According to our pooled results, we finally find that bevacizumab addition as a neoadjuvant chemotherapy component, for induction use with limited cycle to improve the pCR rates and patients may avoid long-term adverse event and long-term invalid survival improvement. Especially in subgroup analysis, pCR rates could be improved significantly and physicians could consider bevacizumab with caution. As patients could avoid the adverse event caused by long-term using of bevacizumab, long-term quality of life improvement may be achieved, especially in TNBC.