Bevacizumab Added to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in HER2-Negative Non-Metastatic Breast Cancer

Recombinant humanized monoclonal antibody bevacizumab binding and inactivating VEGF-A has recently been a particularly attractive focus of research in anti-angiogenic treatment strategy for breast cancer especially the HER-2 negative subtype [1]. Three recently published phase III randomized controlled trials-ARTemis [2], GBG 44- GeparQuinto [3] and SWOG S0800 trial [4]-have showed that adding bevacizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) increased the pathological complete response (pCR) but did not favor the survival of HER-2 negative non-metastatic breast cancer (NMBC), while NSABP B-40 trial [5] contradicted the findings by demonstrating an improved survival particularly disease-free survival (DFS). To settle the disputes, we therefore performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the survival benefit and risk of this treatment strategy.