Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Background
New, effective treatments have resulted in long-term survival for small subgroups of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. However, knowledge of long-term survivor frequency and characteristics prior to modern therapies is lacking.Methods
Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) patients with stage IV NSCLC diagnosed from 1991 to 2007 and followed through 2012 were dichotomized by survival time into the 10% who lived 21 months or longer (long-term survivors) vs the remaining 90% and compared with participants in a representative clinical trial of molecular profiling and targeted therapies (CUSTOM).Results
Among the 44 387 SEER patients, the 10% identified as long-term survivors were distinguishable from the remaining 90% by younger age, female sex, Asian race, adenocarcinoma histology, tumor grade, tumor site, and surgery. From 1991-1994 to 2003-2007, median survival increased by 6 months from 30 to 36 months among long-term survivors but by only 1 month from 3 to 4 months among the remaining 90%. Among the 165 participants in the CUSTOM trial, 54% met our SEER criterion of long-term survival by living for 21 months or longer.Conclusions
Among SEER patients with stage IV NSCLC, long-term survivors had a median survival approximately 10 times that of the remaining 90%. Long-term survivors accounted for more than one-half of the participants in a representative clinical trial. Caution is required when extrapolating the outcomes of participants in clinical trials to patients in routine clinical practice.
SUBMITTER: Davis JS
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6563418 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature