Real-world treatment patterns and outcomes for patients with advanced melanoma treated with immunotherapy or targeted therapy

Objective: To identify real-world patterns of first line treatment, treatment sequence and outcomes for older adults diagnosed with advanced melanoma who received immunotherapy or targeted therapy.

Methods: The study population included older adults (ages 65+) diagnosed with unresectable or metastatic melanoma between 2012 and 2017 and who received first line immunotherapy or targeted therapy. Using the linked surveillance, epidemiology, and end results-medicare data, we described patterns of first line treatment and treatment sequence through 2018. We used descriptive statistics to report patient and provider characteristics by first line treatment receipt and changes in first line therapy use over calendar time. We also described overall survival (OS) and time to treatment failure (TTF) by first line treatment using the Kaplan-Meier method. For patterns of treatment sequence, we reported commonly observed treatment switch patterns by treatment sub-category and calendar year.

Results: The analyses included 584 patients (mean age = 76.3 years). A majority (n = 502) received first line immunotherapy. There was a sustained increase in immunotherapy uptake, most notably from 2015 to 2016. The estimated median OS and TTF were longer with first line immunotherapy than with targeted therapy. Individuals treated with CTLA-4 + PD-1 inhibitors had the longest median OS (28.4 months). The most common treatment switch pattern was from a first line CTLA-4 inhibitor to a second line PD-1 inhibitor.

Conclusions: Our findings inform understanding of treatment patterns of currently used immunotherapies and targeted therapies in older adults with advanced melanoma. Immunotherapy use has increased steadily with PD-1 inhibitors becoming a dominant treatment option since 2015.