Prior to their surgery to remove their rectal tumors, the patients were given Avastin and chemotherapy. After three years, they were still alive and around 91 per cent shows no signs of spreading the disease.
"And what's more surprisingly, none had new cancer growth in the area of the original tumor, " says Rakesh Jain, PhD, the Andrew Werk Professor of Tumor Biology at Harvard Medical School.
During the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer research this week, Avastin was one of the several drugs that were recognized.
FDA has already approved Avastin to treat metastatic colorectal cancer, advanced lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer.
Avastin cancer fighting abilities have been attributed for its prevention of tumors to grow new blood vessels.
Research shows that patients with rectal cancer says that it works in another remarkable way and that it also repairs remaining blood vessels.
The researchers are monitoring the repair of blood vessels by using imaging scans and blood tests for biomarkers known to be involved in cancer growth.
