Comparison Between Health Insurance Claims and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for Metastatic Non-small-cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) Patient Characteristics and Treatment Patterns: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Background The clinical landscape in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatment has rapidly evolved in recent years. Real-world data (RWD) can provide insights into current clinical practice. Objective This study examined the patient characteristics and treatment patterns of patients with metastatic NSCLC using RWD sources. Methods This was a retrospective cohort study using health insurance claims and electronic health records (EHRs). Adult patients treated for metastatic NSCLC during the period 2017 to September 2020 were followed from the earliest treatment date until a censoring event. Results The claims cohort included 7917 patients with a mean age of 70 years and a mean follow-up period of 373 days. The EHR cohort included 7087 patients with a mean age of 67 years and a mean follow-up period of 362 days. The five most common first-line therapies (LoT1) were the same for both cohorts: carboplatin + paclitaxel, pembrolizumab, carboplatin + pemetrexed + pembrolizumab, cisplatin + pemetrexed, and nivolumab. Mean LoT1 durations were 146 and 147 days in the claims and EHR cohorts, respectively. For patients who received a second LoT (LoT2), the five most common LoT2 were also the same in both cohorts: durvalumab, nivolumab, pembrolizumab, carboplatin + pembrolizumab + pemetrexed, and carboplatin + pemetrexed. Mean LoT2 durations were 157 and 158 days in the claims and EHR cohorts, respectively. Conclusions LoTs between the claims and EHR cohorts were comparable and showed similar treatment patterns. Traditional platinum-containing chemotherapy was most common in LoT1, whereas programmed cell death protein-1 inhibitors became the most common choices in LoT2. Our findings suggest that RWD can reliably provide up-to-date insight into current treatment modalities and indicate that new clinical evidence is rapidly adopted in patients with NSCLC.