Utilization of Cancer Therapies for Advanced Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer With an Oncogenic Driver Mutation

Recent advancements in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatment have introduced targeted therapies for tumours with specific oncogenic mutations, offering alternatives to standard chemotherapy. However, it is uncertain if patients with advanced NSCLC who have already undergone targeted therapies and chemotherapy can benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitors. This study examined current treatment patterns and explored the feasibility of comparing the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors to single-drug chemotherapy in such patients. Using population-based data from several Canadian provinces, we tracked treatment sequences in patients with advanced NSCLC over time, finding that targeted therapies were commonly used in earlier treatments but decreased in later stages as chemotherapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors became more prevalent. The study concluded that the number of patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors in later treatments is too small to support a comparative study on their effectiveness in this context.