The Results of the RAINBOW Trial

Smitha Krishnamurthi, MD, a medical oncologist and associate professor of medicine at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University, discusses the results of the phase III RAINBOW trial, which explored ramucirumab plus paclitaxel as a second-line treatment in gastric cancer.

Clinical Pearls:

• Ramucirumab is an antibody against VEGFR-2
• In this randomized, phase III study, patients received paclitaxel chemotherapy with or without ramucirumab
• The median OS for patients who received ramucirumab plus chemotherapy was 9.7 months compared with 7.4 months for paclitaxel alone
• The study also showed that the response rate was increased with ramucirumab and paclitaxel as second-line therapy
• There was also an improvement of quality of life in the ramucirumab/paclitaxel arm