Treatment adherence, healthcare resource utilization, and costs in patients with lung neuroendocrine tumors (lung NETs) in the USA.

OBJECTIVE: To assess first-line treatment adherence, healthcare resource utilization, and costs in lung NET patients initiating pharmacologic treatments.

METHODS: In two US claims databases, patients aged ≥18 years with ≥1 inpatient or ≥2 outpatient lung NET claims within 12 months were identified. The first claim for pharmacologic treatments (e.g. somatostatin analogs [SSAs], cytotoxic chemotherapy [CC], targeted therapy [TT]) following diagnosis, between July 1, 2009-December 31, 2014, was defined as the index date. A 6-month pre-index period without any NET treatment, and ≥1-year post-index enrollment were required. Proportion of days covered (PDC) was calculated during follow-up. Descriptive statistics, including means, standard deviations, and frequencies/percentages for continuous and categorical data, respectively, were reported.

RESULTS: Of 354 patients with 1-year of follow-up, 252 initiated CC, 89 SSA, 3 TT, and 10 various combinations. Due to sample sizes, the remaining results focus only on CC and SSAs. Mean PDC (SD) was 0.320 (0.176) for CC and 0.673 (0.322) for SSAs; CC users had a mean (SD) of 33.3 (23.8) office visits and 0.79 (1.39) hospitalizations; SSA users had 23.1 (12.4) visits and 0.48 (1.07) hospitalizations. Mean total (SD) annual cost for CC users was $124,383 (135,836) and $98,713 (81,495) for SSA users. Among 163 patients with 2 years of follow-up, the annual mean cost in the second-year was $43,026 lower and $8110 higher than the first-year for CC and SSAs, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: The majority of patients with lung NETs initiated CC; only about one quarter initiated SSA in the first-line. This descriptive study updates the utilization and costs of pharmacologically-treated lung NETs.