Predictive value of vascular endothelial growth factor polymorphisms for maintenance bevacizumab efficacy in metastatic colorectal cancer: an ancillary study of the PRODIGE 9 phase III trial

BACKGROUND: Several studies have reported the impact of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway genes on the efficacy of bevacizumab in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), but results are still inconsistent. The PRODIGE 9 phase III study compared bevacizumab maintenance versus observation alone after induction chemotherapy with FOLFIRI plus bevacizumab. OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the impact of SNPs of VEGF-A, VEGF receptors (VEGFR-1, VEGFR-2), and hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) on tumor control duration (TCD), overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and duration of first chemotherapy free-intervals (CFI). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We included 314/491 patients from PRODIGE 9 with a DNA blood sample available. Nine SNPs were genotyped on germline DNA using real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction TaqMan TM (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA , USA 02451). RESULTS: In the bevacizumab arm, patients with the VEGFR-1 rs9582036 CC genotype (n = 14) had significantly longer TCD [22.4 months (95% confidence interval (CI): 14.75-not reached)] than patients with the AA or CA genotype [14.4 months (95% CI: 11.7–17.1)] (p = 0.036), whereas there was no significant difference in the observation arm. In the bevacizumab arm, no significant difference was found between the CC, and AA or CA genotype for OS [28.2 (95% CI: 18.1–42.8) versus 22.5 (95% CI: 18.6–24.6) months, p = 0.5], PFS [9.4 (95% CI: 7.2–11.3) versus 9.2 (95% CI: 8.71–10.1)], and duration of the first CFI [4.6 (95% CI: 1.6–13.3) versus 4.14 (95% CI: 0.5–29.0) months, p = 0.3]. CONCLUSION: Among mCRC patients treated with bevacizumab maintenance, those with the VEGFR-1 rs9582036 CC genotype experienced longer TCD. The presence of this genotype may thus predict a benefit of bevacizumab maintenance in mCRC.