VEGF inhibitors: a new era in the treatment of metastatic ovarian cancer

Abstract

O affect angiogenesis is one of the key goals of therapy for ovarian cancer (OC). The advent of targeted drugs that selectively affect neoangiogenesis has been a breakthrough in treating OC in the past decade. By now the only drug validly demonstrating antiangiogenic activity is bevacizumab whose efficacy has been tested in Phases II and III trials of OC. Bevacizumab has been approved by the European Medicines Agency for use in the first-line therapy of OC and in combination with standard chemotherapy to treat platinum-sensitive recurrent OC. This paper gives the results obtained from further clinical trials of bevacizumab, which expand the spectrum of indications of this targeted angiogenesis inhibitor for the treatment of the disease.

Keywords

• ovarian cancer
• vascular endothelial growth factor
• targeted inhibition of angiogenesis
• bevacizumab