Using Similarity Metrics on Real World Data and Patient Treatment Pathways to Recommend the Next Treatment

Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the most prevalent types of lung cancer and continues to have an ominous five year survival rate. Considerable work has been accomplished in analyzing the viability of the treatments offered to NSCLC patients; however, while many of these treatments have performed better over populations of diagnosed NSCLC patients, a specific treatment may not be the most effective therapy for a given patient. Coupling both patient similarity metrics using the Gower similarity metric and prior treatment knowledge, we were able to demonstrate how patient analytics can complement clinical efforts in recommending the next best treatment. Our retrospective and exploratory results indicate that a majority of patients are not recommended the best surviving therapy once they require a new therapy. This investigation lays the groundwork for treatment recommendation using analytics, but more investigation is required to analyze patient outcomes beyond survival.