Treatment Patterns and Health Resource Use Among Patients with Metastatic Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors Treated at a Tertiary Referral Center

BACKGROUND: Although an increasing number of treatments have become available for patients with advanced gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP‐NETs), there remains little consensus on treatment sequence and its impact on health care resource use (HRU). We sought to describe treatment patterns and HRU, in a cohort of patients with metastatic GEP‐NETs treated at a tertiary referral center in the U.S. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We identified patients with a well‐differentiated, metastatic GEP‐NET evaluated at Dana‐Farber Cancer Institute between July 2003 and May 2015. For these patients, we describe the sequence of treatment regimens received for their disease, together with associated HRU. RESULTS: We identified 682 patients with advanced GEP‐NETs. Of these patients, 597 (87.0%) initiated ≥1 treatment over the follow‐up period. The mean age at diagnosis was 58.5 years, 50.2% were men, and 94.0% were white. A total of 83.1% initiated a somatostatin analog (SSA) as their first‐line treatment, with 55% and 31% of patients continuing with second‐ and third‐line therapies. A total of 31.2% of patients with SSAs underwent dose escalation to above standard dose. In this setting, patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors were more commonly treated with cytotoxic regimens than other NET tumor types and also had higher HRU. CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that, at a tertiary referral center, patients with advanced NETs commonly received multiple courses of treatments. Our data suggest a clear preference for use of SSAs as a first‐line treatment for patients with advanced NETs, with SSAs commonly escalated and continued throughout the course of treatment in combination with other regimens. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The current study demonstrates the common use of somatostatin analog as a first‐line therapy for patients with advanced gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors as well as the incorporation of multiple different treatment regimens in the treatment course of patients with this disease.