Phase II Trial of Bevacizumab Monotherapy in Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

OBJECTIVES: Systemic therapies for pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) are limited. The combination of bevacizumab and temsirolimus showed significant antitumor activity, but the single-agent activity of bevacizumab was unknown. We conducted a single-arm, phase II trial to evaluate the efficacy of bevacizumab in PNETs. METHODS: Patients with progressive disease by the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1 within 7 months of enrollment were eligible for bevacizumab 10 mg/kg every 2 weeks. Adverse events were assessed according to the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events version 3.0. The primary end point was response rate (RR). RESULTS: Twenty-four patients were enrolled and followed up for a median duration of 36.1 months. Confirmed RR was 12.5%; 75.0% of patients had stable disease at 6 months. Median progression-free survival was 18.0 months; median overall survival was not reached. Common grade 3 adverse events were hypertension (45.8%) and proteinuria (8.3%). No grade 4 adverse events were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Bevacizumab demonstrated promising antitumor activity in progressive PNETs comparable to standard targeted therapy. Although this study failed to reject the null hypothesis (RR, 10%), bevacizumab seems a reasonable monotherapy and a potential component of combination therapies given clinical activity and low rates of adverse events.