Biomarker Testing and Patterns of Treatment in Patients with NSCLC: An International Association for The Study of Lung Cancer Analysis of American Society of Clinical Oncology CancerLinQ Discovery Data

Introduction: Precision medicine has resulted in improved outcomes for non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), whereas biomarker testing is considered critical for guiding treatment decisions for advanced-stage NSCLC, and adoption of testing in routine practice is variable. We studied the utilization of biomarker testing in advanced NSCLC. Methods: The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) CancerLinQ Discovery data set was queried to identify patients diagnosed with lung cancer between 2010 and 2018. Data on demographics, tumor stage, histology, and treatments were extracted, and receipt of biomarker testing was investigated as the primary outcome. Univariate association of each clinicopathological variable with the biomarker testing outcome was performed using a chi-square test for categorical variables and an analysis of variance test for numerical variables. A multivariable logistic regression analysis with backward selection at an alpha of 0.05 was reported. All analyses were conducted using SAS 9.4. These results were also confirmed in a subgroup analysis of patients with adenocarcinoma. Conclusion: In this analysis of a United States-based real-world data set of patients with stage IV NSCLC, the Asian race and female sex were associated with a higher likelihood of having biomarker testing performed. The overall percentage of patients undergoing testing remained suboptimal.