Real-world treatment patterns and survival in advanced/metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in Japan

To gather information regarding treatment patterns, outcomes, and healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) for patients with advanced/metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in real-world clinical settings in Japan.

From commercially available health claims databases, patients diagnosed with TNBC between April 2008 and August 2015 were categorized into those initially diagnosed with early-stage (Stage I-IIIB) TNBC who underwent surgery with or without perioperative treatments and subsequently experienced recurrence, and those initially diagnosed at Stage IV.

Among the 276 and 490 patients in the recurrence and Stage IV cohorts, systemic treatments were prescribed to 147 (53.3%) and 190 (38.8%) patients, respectively. Commonly used first-line treatments included capecitabine (20.4%), tegafur-gimeracil-oteracil (19.0%), and bevacizumab + paclitaxel (10.9%) (recurrence cohort); and bevacizumab + paclitaxel (19.5%), paclitaxel (12.1%), and 5-fluorouracil + epirubicin + cyclophosphamide (10.0%) (Stage IV cohort). Second- and third-line regimens were highly diverse. Time-to-treatment discontinuation decreased with advancing treatment lines. In the recurrence cohort without perioperative treatments, survival tended to be longer. Higher HCRU was observed with advancing treatment lines in the recurrence cohort, but not the Stage IV cohort.

Treatments varied among Japanese patients diagnosed with recurrent and de novo Stage IV disease. These data may inform future real-world studies.