A systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of targeted therapies for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

Background: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) imposes a substantial burden on patients, health care systems and society due to increasing incidence and poor survival rates. In recent years, advances in the treatment of metastatic NSCLC have resulted from the introduction of targeted therapies. However, the application of these new agents increases treatment costs considerably. The objective of this article is to review the economic evidence of targeted therapies in metastatic NSCLC. Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify cost-effectiveness (CE) as well as cost-utility studies. Medline, Embase, SciSearch, Cochrane, and 9 other databases were searched from 2000 through April 2013 (including update) for full-text publications. The quality of the studies was assessed via the validated Quality of Health Economic Studies (QHES) instrument. Results: Nineteen studies (including update) involving the MoAb bevacizumab and the Tyrosine-kinase inhibitors erlotinib and gefitinib met all inclusion criteria. The majority of studies analyzed the CE of first-line maintenance and second-line treatment with erlotinib. Five studies dealt with bevacizumab in first-line regimes. Gefitinib and pharmacogenomic profiling were each covered by only two studies. Furthermore, the available evidence was of only fair quality. Conclusion: First-line maintenance treatment with erlotinib compared to Best Supportive Care (BSC) can be considered cost-effective. In comparison to docetaxel, erlotinib is likely to be cost-effective in subsequent treatment regimens as well. The insights for bevacizumab are miscellaneous. There are findings that gefitinib is cost-effective in first- and second-line treatment, however, based on only two studies. The role of pharmacogenomic testing needs to be evaluated. Therefore, future research should improve the available evidence and consider pharmacogenomic profiling as specified by the European Medicines Agency. Upcoming agents like crizotinib and afatinib need to be analyzed as well.BMB

Treatment-related experiences and preferences of patients with lung cancer: A qualitative analysis

Background: Lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide, and it causes significant challenges for patients due to the poor survival rate and treatment-related side-effects. Because of lung cancer's great burden, identification and use of the patients' preferences can help to improve patients' quality of life. Objective: Interviews with patients who have lung cancer were used to ascertain a range of experiences and to make recommendations regarding the improvement of treatment based on these patients' preferences. Because chemotherapy is the common treatment option for lung cancer, we focused on this treatment. The interviews were audio-taped, verbally transcribed and evaluated via content analysis. Setting and Participants: A total of 18 participants (11 men and 7 women) with small or non-small-cell lung cancer who were receiving chemotherapy in one clinic were interviewed between June and July 2013. Results: Two main aspects with different subthemes were identified during the interviews. One main aspect focused on organizational context, such as the treatment day process, or experiences with different stakeholders, such as with the health insurance company or physicians. The other category referred to experiences that influenced psychosocial factors, including physical and mental experiences. Discussion and Conclusion: Patients reported different experiences concerning physical, psychological and organizational areas during chemotherapy. Nevertheless, some potential areas for improving care, and therefore the quality of life of patients with lung cancer, could be identified. These improvement measures highlighted that with small, non-time-consuming and inexpensive changes, the treatment for patients with lung cancer can be improved.BMB

Endobronchial ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration versus transcervical mediastinoscopy in nodal staging of non small cell lung cancer: a prospective comparison study

BACKGROUND: At present only few studies directly compare the diagnostic yield of endobronchial ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration (EBUS-FNA) and transcervical video-assisted mediastinoscopy (TM) for mediastinal lymph node staging in patients with NSCLC. If and when EBUS-FNA may replace TM as Gold Standard remains controversial. METHODS: From April 2008 to December 2009, 36 patients with mediastinal lymphadenopathy underwent simultaneous EBUS-FNA/ TM at our institution. Among them were 26 patients with confirmed or suspected NSCLC. RESULTS: A total of 133 samples were obtained by EBUS-FNA and 157 samples by TM. EBUS-FNA achieved significantly less conclusive, but more indeterminate pathological results in comparison to TM (78.7% vs. 98.6%, p < 0.001; 14.9% vs. 1.4%, p = 0.007). Less paratracheal nodes were sampled by EBUS-FNA (right: 46.2% vs. 88.5%, p = 0.003; left: 23.1% vs. 65.4%, p = 0.005), while sampling rates in the subcarinal localisation were comparable (96.2% vs. 80.8%, p = NS). Among patients with confirmed NSCLC and conclusive EBUS-FNA/ TM findings (n = 18), the prevalence of N2/N3 disease was 66.7% (n = 12) according to TM findings. Diverging nodal stages were found in five patients (27.8%). Three patients who were N2 negative in EBUS-FNA were upstaged to N2 or N3 by TM, two patients with N2 status in EBUS-FNA were upstaged to N3 by TM. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to TM, EBUS-FNA had a lower diagnostic yield and resulted in systematic mediastinal nodal understaging. At this point we suggest corroborating negative EBUS-FNA results by transcervical mediastinoscopy

Therapy preferences of patients with lung and colon cancer: A discrete choice experiment

Objectives: There is increasing interest in studies that examine patient preferences to measure health-related outcomes. Understanding patients’ preferences can improve the treatment process and is particularly relevant for oncology. In this study, we aimed to identify the subgroup-specific treatment preferences of German patients with lung cancer (LC) or colorectal cancer (CRC). Methods: Six discrete choice experiment (DCE) attributes were established on the basis of a systematic literature review and qualitative interviews. The DCE analyses comprised generalized linear mixed-effects model and latent class mixed logit model. Results: The study cohort comprised 310 patients (194 with LC, 108 with CRC, 8 with both types of cancer) with a median age of 63 (SD =10.66) years. The generalized linear mixed-effects model showed a significant (P<0.05) degree of association for all of the tested attributes. “Strongly increased life expectancy” was the attribute given the greatest weight by all patient groups. Using latent class mixed logit model analysis, we identified three classes of patients. Patients who were better informed tended to prefer a more balanced relationship between length and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) than those who were less informed. Class 2 (LC patients with low HRQoL who had undergone surgery) gave a very strong weighting to increased length of life. We deduced from Class 3 patients that those with a relatively good life expectancy (CRC compared with LC) gave a greater weight to moderate effects on HRQoL than to a longer life. Conclusion: Overall survival was the most important attribute of therapy for patients with LC or CRC. Differences in treatment preferences between subgroups should be considered in regard to treatment and development of guidelines. Patients’ preferences were not affected by sex or age, but were affected by the cancer type, HRQoL, surgery status, and the main source of information on the disease

Krüppel-like zinc finger proteins in end-stage COPD lungs with and without severe alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is influenced by environmental and genetic factors. An important fraction of COPD cases harbor a major genetic determinant, inherited ZZ (Glu342Lys) alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency (AATD). A study was undertaken to investigate gene expression patterns in end-stage COPD lungs from patients with and without AATD. METHODS: Explanted lungs of end-stage ZZ AATD-related (treated and non-treated with AAT augmentation therapy) and "normal" MM COPD, and liver biopsies from patients suffering from liver cirrhosis with and without ZZ AATD were used for gene expression analysis by Affymetrix microarrays or RT-PCR. RESULTS: A total of 162 genes were found to be differentially expressed (p-value [less than or equal to] 0.05 and |FC| [greater than or equal to] 2) between MM and ZZ COPD patients. Of those, 134 gene sets were up-regulated and 28 were down-regulated in ZZ relative to MM lung tissue. A subgroup of genes, zinc finger protein 165, snail homolog 1 (Drosophila) (SNAI1), and Kruppel-like transcription factors (KLFs) 4 (gut), 9 and 10, perfectly segregated ZZ and MM COPD patients. The higher expression of KLF 9 and KLF10 has been verified in the replication cohort with AATD-related end-stage lung emphysema and liver cirrhosis. Furthermore, higher expression of KLF9, SNAI1 and DEFA1 was found in ZZ COPD lungs without augmentation therapy relative to MM COPD or ZZ COPD with augmentation therapy. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal the involvement of transcriptional regulators of the zinc-finger family in COPD pathogenesis and provide deeper insight into the pathophysiological mechanisms of COPD with and without AATD

Mobile Air Quality Studies (MAQS) - an international project

Due to an increasing awareness of the potential hazardousness of air pollutants, new laws, rules and guidelines have recently been implemented globally. In this respect, numerous studies have addressed traffic-related exposure to particulate matter using stationary technology so far. By contrast, only few studies used the advanced technology of mobile exposure analysis. The Mobile Air Quality Study (MAQS) addresses the issue of air pollutant exposure by combining advanced high-granularity spatial-temporal analysis with vehicle-mounted, person-mounted and roadside sensors. The MAQS-platform will be used by international collaborators in order 1) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to road structure, 2) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to traffic density, 3) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to weather conditions, 4) to compare exposure within vehicles between front and back seat (children) positions, and 5) to evaluate "traffic zone"- exposure in relation to non-"traffic zone"-exposure. Primarily, the MAQS-platform will focus on particulate matter. With the establishment of advanced mobile analysis tools, it is planed to extend the analysis to other pollutants including including NO2, SO2, nanoparticles, and ozone

Compression, expansion, or maybe both? Growing inequalities in lung cancer in Germany.

BackgroundLung Cancer (LC) is one of the most common malign diseases worldwide. So far, it is unclear if the development of LC incidence and mortality leads to morbidity compression or expansion and whether these developments differ by socioeconomic characteristics. This study analyses time trends in social and gender inequalities in life years with and without LC in Germany.MethodsThe study is based on data of a large German statutory health insurance provider (N = 2,511,790). Incidence and mortality risks were estimated from multistate survival models. Trends in life years with and without LC were analysed using multistate life table analyses. All analyses were performed separately for gender, time period (2006-2009 and 2014-2017), and income group (ResultsAmong men, declining LC incidence rates resulted in gains of life years free of LC and declining LC- affected life years and led to a relative compression, which was strongest in men with higher incomes. Among women, a clear increase in life years with LC led to an expansion of the lifespan affected by LC. This expansion was mainly driven by increasing incidence rates in women with low incomes. Overall, income inequalities in LC increased in both genders.ConclusionsOur analyses reveal that developments in the length of life affected by LC differed substantially by gender and income and led to widening health inequalities over time. Public health efforts should mainly focus on vulnerable groups to reduce the persisting social inequalities in LC

Temporal and spatial dose distribution of radiation pneumonitis after concurrent radiochemotherapy in stage III non-small cell cancer patients

Abstract Background and purpose Radiation pneumonitis (RP) is the most common subacute side effect after concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Several clinical and dose-volume (DV) parameters are associated with a distinct risk of symptomatic RP. The aim of this study was to assess the spatial dose distribution of the RP volume from first occurence to maximum volume expansion of RP. Material and methods Between 2007 and 2015, 732 patients with lung cancer were treated in an institution. Thirty-three patients met the following inclusion criteria: an RP grade II after CRT and a radiation dose ≥60 Gy and no prior medical history of cardiopulmonary comorbidities. The images of the first chest computed tomography (CT) confirming the diagnosis of RP and the CT images showing the maximum expansion of RP were merged with the treatment plan. The RP volume was delineated within the treatment plan, and a DV analysis was performed to evaluate the lung dose volume areas in which the RP manifested over time and whether dose volume changes within the RP volume occurred. Results A change from clinical diagnosis to maximum expansion of RP was observed as the RP at clinical appearance mainly manifested in the lower dose areas of the lung, whereas the RP volume at maximum expansion manifested in the higher dose areas, resulting in a significant shift of the assessed relative mean dose volume proportions within the RP volume. The mean relative dose volume proportion 0- ≤ 20 Gy decreased from 30.2% (range, 0–100) to 21.9% (range, 0–100; p = 0.04) at the expense of the dose volume > 40 Gy which increased from 39.2% (range, 0–100) to 49.8% (range, 0–100; p = 0.02), whereas the dose relative volume proportion > 20- ≤ 40 Gy showed no relevant change and slightly decreased from 30.6% (range, 0–85.7) to 28.3%, (range, 0–85.7; p = 0.34). Conclusion We observed a considerable increase in the relative dose proportions within the RP volume from diagnosis to maximum volume extent from low dose zones below 20 Gy to zones above 40 Gy. Although the clinical impact on RP remains unknown, a reduction of healthy healthy lung tissue receiving >40 Gy (V40) might be an additional parameter for irradiation planning in lung cancer patients

Socioeconomic inequalities in lung cancer – a time trend analysis with German health insurance data

Background!#!Lung Cancer (LC) is one of the most prevalent cancer diseases. Due to the lack of databases which allow the combination of information on individual socioeconomic status (SES) and cancer incidence, research on social inequalities in LC among the German population is rare. The aim of the study is to analyse time trends in social inequalities in LC in Germany.!##!Methods!#!The analyses are based on data of a large statutory health insurance provider. The data contain information on diagnoses, occupation and education (working age), and income (full age range) of the insurance population. Trends were analysed for two subpopulations (retirement age and working age) and stratified by sex. The analyses are based on incidence rates and proportional hazard models spanning the periods 2006-2009, 2010-2013 and 2014-2017.!##!Results!#!Incidence rates declined in men but increased in women. For men, inequalities were strongest in terms of income and the decline in incidence was most pronounced in middle- and higher-income men. Among women at retirement age, a reversed income gradient was found which disappeared in the second period. The educational gradient among the working-age population decreased over time due to the trend towards increasing incidence among individuals with higher education. Declining gradients were also found for occupational position.!##!Conclusion!#!The findings reveal considerable inequalities in LC and that trends vary with respect to SES, sex and age. Widening income inequalities were found in the retired population, while educational and occupational inequalities tend to narrow among the working-age population