Description
Bevacizumab (Trade name Avastin®) is a recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody that blocks angiogenesis by inhibiting vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). VEGF-A stimulates angiogenesis in a variety of diseases, including cancer. Bevacizumab was the first clinically available angiogenesis inhibitor in the United States. Bevacizumab was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for certain metastatic cancers. It received its first approval in 2004, for combined use with standard chemotherapy for metastatic colon cancer. It has since been approved for use in certain lung cancers, renal cancers, ovarian cancers, and glioblastoma multiforme of the brain. It had been approved for breast cancer, but that approval was withdrawn when later studies showed no evidence of effectiveness