Does bevacizumab carry a hope for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in the era of immunotherapy?

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has a very high rate of recurrence. Our aim is to investigate the efficacy of bevacizumab, platinum and paclitaxel as first-line in metastatic TNBC (mTNBC). This study included 54 female patients with mTNBC. They received bevacizumab, carboplatin and paclitaxel every 21 day for six cycles then who progressed shifted to second-line chemotherapy and the responders continue another two cycles. The median progression-free survival (PFS) was 27 months [95% confidence interval (CI), 17.019-36.981]. There were two factors that affect PFS; visceral only metastasis (hazard ratio, 0.23; P = 0.05) and performance status 0 (hazard ratio = 0.16; P = 0.02) with C-index 0.77. The median overall survival (OS) was 55 months (95% CI, 38.973-71.027). There were two factors that affect OS; type of presentation (hazard ratio = 7.91; P = 0.02) and performance status 0 (hazard ratio = 0.12; P = 0.01) with C-index 0.73. In the final evaluation, three factors have their print on achieving either stable disease (SD) or complete response (CR). Patients having <= 3 sites of metastasis odds ratio (OR) 3.92 (P = 0.02), patients with visceral only metastasis OR was 13.20 (P = 0.001), those with performance status 0 had the highest OR 19.5 (P = 0.001) and the percentage of this prediction was 64.8, 70.4 and 70.4%, respectively. Bevacizumab, carboplatin and paclitaxel were well tolerated, continuation of bevacizumab is recommended as long as SD or CR responses are obtained and tolerated.

Automated summary

This study investigated the efficacy of bevacizumab, platinum, and paclitaxel as first-line treatment for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC). The results showed that visceral metastasis and performance status 0 had a significant impact on both progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Additionally, the number of metastatic sites, visceral metastasis, and performance status 0 were important factors in achieving either stable disease (SD) or complete response (CR).