Katrine Wallace, PhD, MS, Clovis Oncology, Boulder, Colorado, discusses study findings estimating the real-world utilization of second-line maintenance therapy for patients with advanced ovarian cancer in the United States.

These findings were presented at the virtual 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Transcript

Hi. My name is Katrine Wallace, Director of Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Clovis Oncology. Today, I wanted to talk to you about a poster that we presented at the ASCO 2021 virtual conference entitled, "Real-World Data Analysis of the Utilization of Second-Line Maintenance for Patients with Advanced Ovarian Cancer."

We did this study almost by accident. We were using the electronic health database to look at other health outcomes in this advanced ovarian cancer population. We found that despite having several treatment options available for second-line advanced ovarian cancer maintenance, fewer than half of the eligible patients were receiving maintenance treatment.

Although ovarian cancer only represents about 1% of all new cancers in the US, it is the fifth leading cause of death among women. Both bevacizumab and PARP inhibitors have recently been recommended as second-line maintenance treatment by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network for advanced ovarian cancer patients since 2013. We present recent estimates here of second-line maintenance utilization.

First, let me tell you a little bit about the study design. We identified patients from an electronic health records database from a major oncology network.

Everyone in this study was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, received a second-line platinum-containing regimen for their advanced ovarian cancer, and had two or more visits in the database between January 2016 and July 31st of 2020. Patients were followed longitudinally until October 31, 2020 or if they passed away, whichever came first.

We identified 11,494 patients with advanced ovarian cancer. Of those, 1051 met the study inclusion criteria. Of the 1051 patients who received platinum chemotherapy for second-line treatment, only about 49% of those subsequently received maintenance therapy.

Of those maintenance patients, 26% received a PARP inhibitor, 28% received bevacizumab, 3% a non-platinum chemo, and 51% received no maintenance at all or active surveillance. This proportion of eligible patients receiving second-line maintenance also did not increase over time. In 2017, 2018, and 2019 respectively, these percentages were 53%, 58%, and 59%.

To conclude, having several treatment options available that are not only available but recommended per the guidelines, fewer than half of eligible patients in this population were receiving maintenance therapy.

Reid RL, Xie Y, Shi J, et al. Real-world data analysis of the utilization of second-line maintenance therapy for patients with advanced ovarian cancer. Presented at: the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting; June 4-8, 2021; virtual. Abstract e18702.