A recent study has shown that combination of Avastin with gemcitabine-cisplatin chemotherapy improves the time lung cancer patients live without progression of the disease. This combination also increased the tumor response rate by 70 percent as compared to treatment with chemotherapy alone. This study was led by Christian Manegold of Heidelberg University in Mannheim, Germany.

Avastin approved in several countries as a treatment for colorectal, lung, breast and kidney cancer. This drug works by directly inhibiting vascular endothelial growth factor, a key mediator of the growth of new blood vessels. The lack of blood vessels prevents oxygen from reaching the tumor cells and they die.

Final analysis of the "Avail" trial showed that addition of the Avastin to the existing treatments of the patients with previously untreated, advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) increased the survival by 30 percent longer without disease progression.

Swiss drugmaker Roche, which is a partner with Genentech in Avastin development, added that the study was not powered to demonstrate an overall survival benefit.
 Analysis of the data of overall survival in patients without second-line therapies showed a trend towards improvement of survival in patients given Avastin compared with those given chemotherapy alone, from 7.3 months to 8.7 months.

Researchers found  that all treatment groups in the study showed an average overall survival of more than 13 months.

Researchers concluded that the present study confirms for the second time that Avastin provides important clinical benefits and the longest survival reported for patients with advanced non-squamous NSCLC.