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Good point heblaj01, about the possibility of affecting normal functions as wound healing. Gastrointestinal perforation has occurred in an increased incidence in patients using the angiogenesis drug Avastin. If Avastin is given within at least 28 days following major surgery (or before), it results in an abscess formation. This is due to the impaired wound healing induced by Avastin.
If Avastin works like it is supposed to work, not only does it cut off blood supply to the tumor, it also cuts off blood supply to the colon entirely causing the tissue to die. Avastin can cause you to loose your colon. What is disturbing is oncologists' comment that this is common with Avastin, BUT is never mentioned until it is too late.
Most bowel perforations with Avastin have been in cases where there is tumor going right through the wall of the colon. Avastin causes the tumor to melt away, leaving a hole. With Avastin, the tumor dissolves, but scar tissue won't form, because it can't make a blood supply.
The same thing applies to bowl perforations with Avastin in advanced ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer commonly involves bowel walls. The problem is a direct result of the drug's ability to kill tumor cells that have replaced healthy bowel tissue, leading to a dead area that then perforates. With conventional chemotherapy, as the tumor melts away, new connective tissue forms a patch. But Avastin can inhibit the growth of capillaries into newly forming normal tissue, as well as in tumor tissue.
There are good sides and bad sides to all drugs. What needs to be learned, and obviously sometimes the hard way, is how do drugs work. This is particularly true when they are biologics, they can be working in ways and speed that we weren't used to. It is a learning process and it can be a painful one.
Avastin is still a very good drug, but we just need to learn how to use it. Molecular assays can't tell you how a drug works, it can only tell you if it works, or not.
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