Bevacizumab in the treatment of nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer: clinical trial evidence and experience

Angiogenesis is one of the hallmarks of cancer. Antivascular endothelial growth factor therapy, including bevacizumab, is therefore a major option in targeting angiogenesis, especially for the management of stage IV nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer patients. This review focuses first on the data from clinical trials available to date regarding efficacy and safety of chemotherapy plus bevacizumab. This review then highlights the current remaining questions related to the use of this drug in daily practice and how the patients might be clinically and radiologically selected. Finally, this review explores the future directions for bevacizumab development in nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer and for a biological selection of patients with research on predictive biomarkers.