Real-world utilization of advanced therapies and racial disparity among patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC): A Medicare database analysis.

Abstract

5073 Background: Several randomized controlled trials have shown that adding docetaxel or novel hormonal therapy (NHT) to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) improves survival in mCSPC patients. This study aimed to evaluate the real-world utilization of advanced therapies over time and to provide data on utilization patterns among racial minorities that are often under-represented in clinical trials. Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of a Medicare database (Jan 2009-Dec 2018). Adult men with ≥1 claim for prostate cancer (PC) who initiated ADT (index date) within 90 days prior to or any time after a metastasis diagnosis were included. The first-line (1L) treatment was grouped by PC drugs prescribed within 30 days prior to and 120 days after the index date, in 4 categories: ADT alone, ADT + first-generation anti-androgen (AA; ≥90 days to avoid capturing AA for flare control), ADT + docetaxel, and ADT + NHT (abiraterone, apalutamide, and enzalutamide). The 1L treatment distributions were described over time and stratified by race. Results: A total of 35,195 patients with mCSPC were included in the study, with a mean (SD) age of 76.5 (7.9) years. 11.8% were Black, 5.3% Hispanic, and 78.5% White. 76.4% received ADT alone as 1L treatment, 14.3% ADT + AA, 4.8% ADT + docetaxel, and 4.5% ADT + NHT. While the proportion of patients treated with ADT alone and ADT + AA slowly decreased over time, the utilization of ADT + docetaxel increased since 2015 and the utilization of ADT + NHT increased since 2017 (Table). After the emergence of NHTs for treatment of mCSPC in 2017, treatment intensification with ADT + NHT was numerically lower for Black than White patients. Data from before 2017 also suggest a similar lower use of ADT + AA in Black patients (Table). Survival analysis across treatment cohorts and race are ongoing. Conclusions: In this large and nationally representative sample of mCSPC patients, less than one-third of patients received treatment intensification by 2018, possibly due to patient/disease characteristics, provider awareness or therapeutic inertia, or cost. Importantly, the data showed less frequent treatment intensification in Black vs White patients. Further study is required to elucidate underlying reasons for this disparity.[Table: see text]