Background: ICI’s have demonstrated significant clinical benefit since the first FDA approval in 2011 of ipilimumab for metastatic melanoma. Five additional ICI therapies have since been approved across several indications. The objectives of this study were to describe the clinical and demographic features of patients receiving ICI treatment along with utilization patterns in real-world settings.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective, observational cohort study using statistically de-identified data from January 2011 to November 2018 in CancerLinQ, ASCO’s real-world oncology database, which now contains EHR data from 49 diverse oncology practices in the U.S. Adult patients diagnosed with any cancer type who received ≥1 dose of an ICI (see Table) and had ≥2 clinical visits were eligible for inclusion. Patients were excluded if they received an ICI prior to its first FDA approval date to avoid inclusion of clinical trial patients. Descriptive statistics were used to examine treatment patterns and clinical characteristics of patients receiving ICIs.

Results: This analysis included 12,712 patients who received an ICI. Median patient age was 67.4 years [IQR 59.3, 75.3]; 58% were male. White race made up the highest percent (83%) of ICI patients, followed by Black race (9%) and Other (8%). The most common primary cancers at the start of treatment were lung cancer (36%), melanoma (8%), urothelial cancer (2%) and renal cell carcinoma (2%). Of the 8,444 patients with known disease stage, 5,446 (64%) had Stage IV cancer. Breakdown of ICI treatment patterns can be found in the accompanying table. Uptake of ICIs was the most rapid for nivolumab, which had the highest use (49%), followed by pembrolizumab for rapid adoption and use (30%).

Conclusions: This analysis gives insights into patient characteristics and real-world treatment patterns for ICIs. ICIs were used most widely in males, lung cancer patients and patients with advanced disease. These baseline characteristics inform our analyses of ICI use in patients with autoimmune disease, also reported herein.

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