Adverse Events of Bevacizumab in Patients with Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

Abstract

Even with the decreasing incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC), data showing that the rate of incidence of CRC is declining with 2.9% every year starting with 2005 until 2014, CRC remains one of the most frequent neoplasia all over the world. Almost a quarter of patients with CRC present with stage IV disease at diagnosis and nearly 30% of patients with localized disease will progress within 5 years. Our study included 129 patients with metastatic CRC that received chemotherapy � bevacizumab, from January 2017 until December 2018. Patients received fluropirimidine-based chemotherapy plus or minus bevacizumab. No significant differences was registered between groups with respects of age, sex, tumor localization, chemotherapy regimen used. Also no significant difference was found in our groups regarding risk factors for bleeding and medical history. No remarkable differences were registered between the two groups regarding common adverse reactions to chemotherapy, with the exception of physical asthenia which was found in a greater proportion of patients that received bevacizumab in combination with chemotherapy. In our study most frequent adverse events related to bevacizumab were grade 1 or 2, only few adverse events were grade 3 or 4 and lead to discontinuation of bevacizumab treatment, and these were mainly thromboembolic events and bleeding.