My husband had Avastin and carboplatin for a couple of months. Also he had CPT-11 and Thalidomide for 6 months earlier in 2007, but it failed. Actually both failed I'd have to say. He had been receiving CPT-11 free on a clinical trial.
At the time we started Avastin/carboplatin, our NO said she her Avastin patients were about 50-50 on either CPT-11 or carboplatin. The big successful study with the good results was done with CPT-11, so that is what she would prefer to use, but since it cost $6000 a dose, if insurance did not cover it she would use carboplatin which was easier to get approved. She said her patients did well on each, neither seemed better than the other for results.
Side effects--well he did not have the infamous CPT-11 diarrhea, instead he had bad constipation. On Avastin/carboplatin, he had no side effects apart from a couple of days of fatigue. On neither one did he have any blood crashes.