Introduction: There is a critical need to develop effective new strategies for the management of patients with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer (EC) and molecular targeted therapies; in particular, antiangiogenic drugs represent an interesting field of pharmacological research. One of the most interesting of these agents is bevacizumab, a monoclonal antivascular endothelial growth factor antibody.
Areas covered: Mechanism of action and clinical trials of bevacizumab in EC, and suggestions for its future use are reviewed. The most relevant papers and the meeting abstracts published up to December 2011 were used as sources for this review. The purposes of this manuscript are to discuss the rationale of interfering with the process of tumor angiogenesis in EC, to help readers in understanding the mechanism of action of bevacizumab, and to provide a comprehensive summary of initial preclinical and clinical results of this drug in EC patients.
Expert opinion: Recent advances in the understanding of the molecular biology of EC have led to development of targeted therapies. Among these, antiangiogenic agents are one of the most promising therapies.