Bevacizumab combined with chemotherapy for glioblastoma: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

// Shou-Bo Yang 1 , Kai-Di Gao 2 , Tao Jiang 3 , Shu-Jun Cheng 1 and Wen-Bin Li 1 1 Department of Oncology, Beijing Shijitan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China 2 Beijing Rehabilitation Hospital of Capital Medical University, Beijing, China 3 Department of Neurosurgery, Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China Correspondence to: Wen-Bin Li, email: liwenbin@ccmu.edu.cn Keywords: bevacizumab, chemotherapy, glioblastoma, meta-analysis, prognosis Received: October 24, 2016      Accepted: March 22, 2017      Published: April 07, 2017 ABSTRACT Bevacizumab, as antibodies, were applied to inhibit tumor angiogenesis by preventing activation of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor. We analyzed four clinical trials, including 607 patients, to investigate the efficacy and safety of bevacizumab when combined with chemotherapy for the treatment of glioblastomas. Results demonstrated that bevacizumab when combined with chemotherapy improved progression-free survival (HR = 0.66; 95% CI 0.56–0.78; p < 0.00001) compared with bevacizumab or chemotherapy alone. Furthermore, overall survival showed insignificant difference between two arms (HR 0.99; 95% CI 0.8–1.21; p = 0.92). However, we found that patients treated with bevacizumab-containing therapy reported increased objective response rate (OR 1.85, 95% CI 1.17–2.93; p = 0.009), but more treatment-related adverse events (OR 1.75; 95% CI 1.09–2.83; p = 0.02).