The roles and limitations of bevacizumab in the treatment of ovarian cancer

Bevacizumab, an anti-VEGF antibody, targets mainly tumor blood vessels and exerts a cytostatic antitumor effect. In primary ovarian cancer, bevacizumab is used for 15 months, but its effect on progression-free survival disappears after 2 years and does not prolong overall survival. And in the treatment of primary ovarian cancer, there is no evidence that bevacizumab increases the intratumor concentration of chemotherapy and enhances response rates. On the other hand, bevacizumab is not affected by resistance mechanisms to chemotherapeutic agents or poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors. In the era of using PARP inhibitors for primary ovarian cancer, bevacizumab will become a molecularly targeted drug that will play a central role in chemo-refractory and recurrent ovarian cancer.