Cytotoxic Chemotherapy as First-Line Therapy for Advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer in Taiwan: Daily Practice

Cytotoxic chemotherapy is the standard first-line therapy for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without specific gene alterations. This study examined the prescription pattern and the survival outcome of cytotoxic chemotherapy regimens in daily practice in Taiwan.

We established a population-based cohort of patients diagnosed with advanced NSCLC between 2005 and 2009 using the databases of Taiwan Cancer Registry and National Health Insurance in Taiwan. We then analyzed chemotherapy prescriptions and the survival outcomes of patients.

A total of 25,008 patients with advanced NSCLC were identified, 17,443 (70.0%) of which received first-line chemotherapy and were therefore included in this study. Among them, 11,551 (66.2%) patients had adenocarcinoma and 3,292 (18.9%) patients had squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Approximately 70% of the patients were diagnosed with NSCLC in medical centers. Platinum-based doublet chemotherapy was administered to 66.9% of the patients. Among all chemotherapy regimens, platinum with gemcitabine (33.8%) was the most common, irrespective of geographic region. The second and third most common regimens were vinorelbine alone (13.0%) and platinum with docetaxel (11.6%). The prevalence of platinum-based doublet chemotherapy regimens decreased from 71.4% in 2005 to 64.1% in 2009. Among patients with adenocarcinoma histology, those who received platinum with pemetrexed had longer OS than did patients who received other platinum-based regimens (p < 0.001).

Our findings reaffirm that in real-world practice, treatment plans of advanced NSCLC should be drawn up according to histology type.