Bevacizumab and Erlotinib Study in Advanced Ovarian Cancer

Erlotinib and bevacizumab, novel biologics, offer a new regimen for the treatment of ovarian cancer in women who are refractory to standard drug regimens. Because bevacizumab is an anti-angiogenesis drug and erlotinib is an EGFR receptor inhibitor their combination would lead to the inhibition of multiple signal transduction pathways and the reversal of cancer progression in this difficult to treat population. The study seeks to determine the efficacy and safety of the EGFR receptor inhibitor, erlotinib plus the anti-angiogenesis VEGF ligand inhibitor bevacizumab in women with platinum and taxane refractory ovarian cancer. The study design is a non-randomized, open label, single center Phase II trial using a Simon two stage design. Eligible patients are women who have a histologically or pathologically confirmed diagnosis of epithelial carcinoma of the ovary or primary peritoneal carcinoma who have relapsed or are refractory to therapy after primary treatment of their disease. Patients will be treated with erlotinib 150 mg/day orally and bevacizumab 10mg/kg every two weeks plus or minus one day intravenously. Forty patients will be enrolled in the study. Initially 20 eligible patients will be accrued. If one or no confirmed response is observed, the trial will be closed and the agents considered inactive. Otherwise, 20 additional eligible patients will be accrued for a total of 40 patients. Eight or more responses out of 40 will be considered evidence warranting further study of the agents provided other factors, such as progression-free and overall survival, also appear favorable. Previous studies of this combination in non-small cell lung cancer, renal cell carcinoma and metastatic breast cancer have indicated a potential synergistic effect for these two agents. Preliminary data for the use of bevacizumab in advanced ovarian cancer indicates that this agent has single-agent activity. As a result, the researchers are interested in exploring the role of the combination of erlotinib and bevacizumab in advanced ovarian cancer.