Purpose: As glioblastoma progresses, patients experience a decline in health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Delaying this decline is an important treatment goal. In newly diagnosed glioblastoma, progression-free survival was prolonged when bevacizumab was added to radiotherapy plus temozolomide (RT/TMZ) versus placebo plus RT/TMZ (phase III AVAglio study; hazard ratio, 0.64; 95% CI, 0.55 to 0.74; P < .001). To ensure that addition of bevacizumab to standard-of-care therapy was not associated with HRQoL detriment, HRQoL assessment was a secondary objective.
Patients and methods: Patients completed European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaires C30 and BN20 at each tumor assessment (Appendix Table A1, online only). Raw scores were converted to a 100-point scale and mean changes from baseline scores were evaluated (stable: < 10-point change; clinically relevant deterioration/improvement: ≥ 10-point change). Deterioration-free survival was the time to deterioration/progression/death; time to deterioration was the time to deterioration/death.
Results: Most evaluable patients who had not progressed (> 74%) completed all HRQoL assessments for at least 1 year of treatment, and almost all completed at least one HRQoL assessment at baseline (98.3% and 97.6%, bevacizumab and placebo arms, respectively). Mean changes from baseline did not reach a clinically relevant difference between arms for most items. HRQoL declined at progression in both arms. The addition of bevacizumab to RT/TMZ resulted in statistically longer (P < .001) deterioration-free survival across all items. Time to deterioration was not statistically longer in the placebo plus RT/TMZ arm (v bevacizumab) for any HRQoL item.
Conclusion: The addition of bevacizumab to standard-of-care treatment for newly diagnosed glioblastoma had no impact on HRQoL during the progression-free period.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00943826.
© 2015 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.