Real-World Treatment Patterns, Overall Survival, and Occurrence and Costs of Adverse Events Associated With First-line Therapies for Medicare Patients 65 Years and Older With Advanced Non–small-cell Lung Cancer: A Retrospective Study

PURPOSE: This study sought to better understand real-world treatment patterns, overall and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC)-specific survival, adverse event (AE) occurrence, and economic impact of first-line cancer therapies in Medicare patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This retrospective cohort study identified patients ≥ 65 years in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database who received a first-time advanced (stage IV) NSCLC diagnosis from 2007 to 2011, and who received first-line platinum-based chemotherapy from 2007 through mid-2013. First-line regimens, healthcare resource use, occurrence of AEs, and associated costs (2013 US dollars) were analyzed. Median survival was determined using the Kaplan-Meier method. RESULTS: Surprisingly, only 46% of patients (n = 13,472) with stage IIIB/IV NSCLC received systemic therapy, and 5931 received platinum-based therapy. The mean age was 73 years, with 3354 (57%) males; 1489 (25%) had squamous and 4442 (75%) nonsquamous histology. The most common regimens were carboplatin doublets (70%), including carboplatin/paclitaxel (38%), carboplatin/pemetrexed (12%), carboplatin/gemcitabine (11%), and carboplatin/docetaxel (7%). The median overall survival from first-line therapy initiation was 7.2 months (95% confidence interval, 7.0-7.5 months). Dyspnea and anemia were the most common AEs of interest, whereas atypical pneumonia was associated with the greatest AE-related costs (mean, $5044). The mean total per-patient-per-month cost was $11,909, with AE-related costs comprising 9% of total costs. The highest costs and survival were observed for patients treated with carboplatin/pemetrexed and bevacizumab/carboplatin/paclitaxel. CONCLUSIONS: These real-world data illustrate the most common first-line regimens by histology, overall survival, AEs, and some of the high AE-related costs of therapy for advanced NSCLC, and provides extremely useful information for clinicians.