The potential of a CLIA-certified prognostic/predictive molecular test to address the rising costs of non-small cell lung cancer.

Abstract

e21671 Background: Treating recurrences of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is increasingly expensive but still rarely curative. Disease free survival (DFS) among resected stage I-IIA patients remains only 50-70%. Guidelines advocate adjuvant therapy in “high-risk” patients in this population to reduce these costly and deadly recurrences, but recognize that conventional criteria have not been validated to stratify risk or predict benefit. A CLIA-certified, commercially available 14-gene expression risk profile (DetermaRx) has been extensively validated among stage I-IIA non-squamous NSCLC patients; prospective data now suggest that the test predicts improved DFS with adjuvant therapy. We therefore studied the potential economic impact of this molecular test on early stage NSCLC. Methods: Model variables included: relative increase in DFS with adjuvant treatment of molecular intermediate- and high-risk patients (25.5%; range 12.3-41.3%); cost of adjuvant ($8,760; $8,144-$9,376) or late-stage ($284,500; $224,900-345,200) treatment; and compliance with recommendations for adjuvant therapy (75%; 60-90%). Ranges were based on: historical trials and recent prospective data, published cost literature, and published survey data, respectively. Parameters were varied in a multifactorial, one-way sensitivity analysis to assess the impact of parameter uncertainty. Results: Reduction of recurrences with implementation of the 14-gene assay resulted in an average cost savings of $11,608/patient (potential systems savings of ~$450 million), even when including the cost of molecular risk stratification ($4000/patient) and of cisplatin-based adjuvant chemotherapy for molecular high- and intermediate-risk patients. Lower bound assumptions for relative improvement, cost of care, and compliance yielded persistent savings of $3,699, $8,091 and $8,486, respectively. Conclusions: Utilization of this predictive molecular risk stratification assay in the management of stage I-IIA non-squamous NSCLC has the potential to significantly reduce lung cancer costs in an era of targeted therapy and immunotherapy, while at the same time improving DFS and saving lives.