Side Effects of Bevacizumab (Avastin)

2 Views • 08/29/25

Side Effects

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Avastin® (Bevacizumab) is a biolgic cancer drug that binds two growth factors in your body to prevent new blood vessels from forming. Some of the major side effects are vascular, including high blood pressure, nose bleeds, and rarely stroke and heart attack. Bowel perforation is also a possible serious side effect.

Transcript:
Very commonly administered drug, Avastin. Bevacizumab, been around about 15 years now. A biologic. The way it works is it binds to growth factors in your body that prevent new blood vessels from forming. So the idea here is that cancers can't grow, they can't metastasize if they can't get access to the blood vessels. And it does do that, but it has side effects and some of the major side effects are vascular side effects, right?

So high blood pressure, nose bleed, rarely stroke, heart attack can be seen. The one we worry about the most around here is bowel perforation or fistulas. So if there's a lot of cancer in your abdominal cavity and the cancer responds, it might leave a hole so the bowel no longer is in tact and it can sow stool contents out into your abdominal cavity. So none of us likes that. Fortunately, all those scary side effects of stroke, heart attack, and fistula bowel perforation are quite rare, so do watch out for them and talk with your doc about them.

So generally speaking, pretty safe drug to add to the other chemotherapy drugs. Doesn't really work by itself, needs to be part of the recipe for the treatment of your cancer.

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