Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tempus-authored – Background: Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICIs) were first approved for the treatment of aNSCLC in 2014, and since this time have seen rapid adoption in the marketplace. We sought to describe the characteristics of patients with aNSCLC receiving ICIs in the real-world, as well as to examine treatment patterns and outcomes in the time since initial ICI approval.
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. Adult patients with a curated diagnosis of Stage III or IV NSCLC who received ≥1 dose of an ICI and had ≥2 clinical visits were eligible for inclusion. Stage III patients were excluded if they received any local therapy < 1 year prior to receiving ICI. Patients were also excluded if they received ICI prior to the first FDA approval date. Demographic and clinical characteristics of aNSCLC patients receiving ICI are reported. Outcomes including time to treatment discontinuation (TTD), time to next treatment (TTNT), real-world progression free survival (rwPFS) and overall survival (OS) were examined via the Kaplan Meier method.
Results: Among 2,425 aNSCLC ICI patients included in this analysis, median age was 68.0 years (IQR 60.7, 75.2], 54% were male and 73% of patients were white. Non-squamous histology accounted for 64% of aNSCLC ICI users, and 81% had Stage IV disease. Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status was 0-1 in 77% and 2+ in 23% of patients, and 70% were current or former smokers. The majority (75%) of patients received ICI as second-line or later therapy. Treatment outcomes and survival are reported in the Table.
Conclusions: This analysis demonstrates that aNSCLC patients receiving ICI therapy in the real-world are older than what was reported in some clinical trials, though survival outcomes were similar. Further research to examine impact of covariates on outcomes is warranted.
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Authors: Sean Khozin, Jizu Zhi, Monika Jun, Li Chen, Wendy S. Rubinstein, Mark S. Walker, George Anthony Komatsoulis, Jeremy Roberts, Ryan Fukushima, Denise Lau, Brigham Hyde, Edward Stepanski, and Robert S. Miller