Aim: To evaluate treatment patterns and overall survival (OS) in real world metastatic non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSQ-NSCLC) patients that received pembrolizumab plus pemetrexed-platinum (pembro+pem+plat) aligned with KEYNOTE-189. Materials & methods: OS was evaluated for the overall cohort and maintenance therapy (MT) subgroups and analyzed using Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox proportional hazards model. Results: Of 2488 patients that received first-line treatment, 45.1% received less than four cycles of pembro+pem+plat, 43.9% received four cycles plus MT with pembro and/or pem, and 11.1% received four cycles without continuing on MT. The median OS was 21.0 months and 9.1 months in patients that continued and did not continue MT. Conclusion: Real world patients that received KEYNOTE-189-aligned treatment had similar OS benefits.
Keywords: KEYNOTE-189; electronic health record data; maintenance therapy; non-small-cell lung cancer; overall survival; pembrolizumab plus pemetrexed and platinum; real-world evidence.
What is this article about? KEYNOTE-189 was a research study (i.e., clinical trial) that compared two different combinations of medicine to treat patients with advanced non-squamous (NSQ) non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This was the first treatment after being diagnosed for all patients, and they received one of two combinations – either pembrolizumab, pemetrexed, plus a platinum-based chemotherapy (pembro+pem+plat) or placebo plus pemetrexed plus a platinum-based chemotherapy. After receiving these combinations four-times, patients were switched to maintenance therapy with pembro and/or pem. In general, patients first treated with pembro+pem+plat survived longer than those treated with placebo plus pemetrexed-platinum. In the current study, researchers wanted to learn if the same results can be expected for patients being treated in the community. What are the results? Patients who completed four sessions of pembro+pem+plat and continued on maintenance therapy survived for 21.0 months and those who completed four sessions of pembro+pem+plat but did not continue on maintenance therapy survived for 9.1 months. What do the results of the study mean? Patients in the community who were treated with pembro+pem+plat and continued on maintenance therapy survived as long as those in the KEYNOTE-189 study.