Cancer Drug Avastin Increases Risk of Kidney Disease

Cancer patients receiving a drug called Avastin are at a higher risk of developing a kidney problem known as proteinuria. Proteinuria can eventually lead to significant kidney damage that in severe cases can lead to kidney failure. Avastin’s medical name is bevacizumb. The drug was the focus of a recent study led by Shenhong Wu of Stony Brook Medical Center. Bevacizumb is prescribed to cancer patients in an effort to slow or prevent the further growth  and spread of tumors.

The study involved the analysis of data from more than 12,000 patients involved in 16 different studies across the United States. Wu and his colleagues discovered that patients with a form of kidney cancer were 10 percent more likely to develop the chronic kidney disease proteinuria. Those cancer sufferers that received higher doses of the tumor fighting drug were twice as likely to develop the disease than those on low doses. In total, 2.2 percent of all patients taking Avastin developed severe proteinuria. The development of proetinuria actually reduced the effect of the tumor fighting ability of the drug.

Avastin is produced by the pharmaceutical company Genentech. It was approved by the FDA in 2009 for use in renal cancer cases. The clinical trial proved that using Avastin in combination with an immunotherapy drug extended the progression free period of tumors by five months. However, the study did not prove that the drug actually extended a person’s life.

The results of the study have been published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.