OBJECTIVES

: The objective of this analysis was to describe the progression-free survival (PFS) of patients following incident diagnosis of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC), and to compare patients who received first line (1L) chemotherapy with patients who received other types of treatment (tyrosine kinase inhibitors, immunotherapy or angiogenesis inhibitors).

METHODS

: aNSCLC patients observable for at least 12 months from their incident diagnosis were identified in a German claims dataset, covering the years 2011-2017. Events which suggested progression of the disease were: treatment switch (start of a new treatment line), treatment discontinuation (no prescription for 90 days), tumor stage progression (restricted to patients who had tumor stage IIIB and progressed to stage IV), and death.

RESULTS

: Mean PFS of 353 patients who switched treatment was 212.1 days (95%CI:198.2-226.1), mean PFS of 623 patients who discontinued treatment was 247.8 days (95%CI:235.7-260.0), mean PFS of 221 patients who progressed to stage IV was 118.9 days (95%CI:96.8-141.0), and mean PFS of 517 patients who died was 170.6 days (95%CI:156.4-184.9).

In a multivariate Cox regression, the following factors were associated with shorter PFS: male gender (HR:1.13), number of prescribed chronic drugs in the 12 months before diagnosis (HR:1.02) and not tested/ negative mutation status (HR:1.28).

CONCLUSIONS

: In the real-world, PFS of aNSCLC patients is limited, especially if the 1L treatment is not targeted therapy.