Background: Although immune checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies are contraindicated as first-line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with ALK rearrangement and EGFR mutation, many receive them. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between optimal first-line treatment in this population and clinical outcomes.
Methods: Claims and genomic data from patients with advanced or metastatic NSCLC were extracted from a nationally representative GuardantINFORM dataset. Patients who had their first claim mentioning advanced or metastatic NSCLC between March 2019 and February 2020 and had ALK rearrangement or EGFR mutation detected by comprehensive genomic profiling were included in this study. Patients were classified as having received optimal or suboptimal first-line treatment. Claims were reviewed to determine real-world time to next treatment, real-world time to discontinuation, and health services utilization (emergency department, inpatient, and outpatient) in the 12 months following first-line treatment initiation. Survival analyses were conducted using Kaplan-Meier plots and Cox proportional hazard models. Health services utilization was compared between the groups using t tests and negative binomial models.
Results: Of the 359 patients included, 280 (78.0%) received optimal first-line treatment. Optimally treated patients had longer median real-world time to next treatment (11.2 vs 4.4 months; P<.01) and real-world time to discontinuation (10.4 vs 1.9 months; P<.01). The optimal group had significantly fewer emergency department presentations (0.76 vs 1.27; P<.01) and outpatient visits (22.9 vs 42.7; P<.01) than the suboptimal group but did not significantly differ in inpatient utilization. Adjusted utilization analysis yielded similar findings.
Conclusions: Patients with NSCLC who received optimal treatment, as determined by comprehensive genomic profiling using next-generation sequencing-based circulating tumor DNA testing (Guardant360), had significantly superior clinical and utilization outcomes, reinforcing existing guidelines recommending profiling at the onset of treatment.