Characteristics of Real-World Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients Treated with Nivolumab and Pembrolizumab During the Year Following Approval.

CONCLUSION: During the year following U.S. regulatory approval of PD-1 inhibitors for treatment of NSCLC, real-world patients receiving nivolumab or pembrolizumab were older at treatment initiation and more had smoking history relative to clinical trial cohorts. Studies of outcomes in underrepresented subgroups are needed to inform real-world treatment decisions.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Evidence gathered in conventional clinical trials used to assess safety and efficacy of new therapies is not necessarily generalizable to real-world patients receiving these drugs following regulatory approval. Real-world evidence derived from electronic health record data can yield complementary evidence to enable optimal clinical decisions. Examined here is a cohort of programmed cell death protein 1 inhibitor-treated metastatic non-small cell lung cancer patients in the first year following regulatory approval of these therapies in this indication. The analysis revealed how the real-world cohort differed from the clinical trial cohorts, which will inform which patients are underrepresented and warrant additional studies.
PMID: 29317551 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: The Oncologist - January 9, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Khozin S, Abernethy AP, Nussbaum NC, Zhi J, Curtis MD, Tucker M, Lee SE, Light DE, Gossai A, Sorg RA, Torres AZ, Patel P, Blumenthal GM, Pazdur R Tags: Oncologist Source Type: research