A new study titled “Real-world patient characteristics and survival outcomes in patients with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer in England: a retrospective, population-based study,” has been published in BMJ Open. The work co-authored by HDI, in conjunction with GSK, was conducted by Health Data Scientist Tameera Rahman and Senior Health Data Analyst Clare Pearson and offers critical insights into the treatment and survival patterns of patients with endometrial cancer.
The study analysed data collected by NHS England’s National Disease Registration Service between 2013 and 2019. It focused on patients with primary advanced (a primary cancer at stage III or IV) or recurrent endometrial cancer who may have been eligible for clinical trials aimed at evaluating immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) when used as first-line (1L) treatments. ICIs are a type of immunotherapy drug that treats cancer by blocking proteins that prevent the immune system from attacking cancer cells.
Results from this real-world, retrospective, population-based study identified 13,954 patients with primary advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer. Of those, 2,376 ICI-eligible patients were included in the 1L cohort. These were ICI-eligible patients who received any 1L therapy (defined as first systemic treatment for primary advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer with or without radiotherapy) and met eligibility criteria for the RUBY trial (evaluating ICI dostarlimab plus carboplatin-paclitaxel in patients with primary advanced or first-recurrence endometrial cancer). The patients in this cohort had a median age of 67.9 years and most had received surgery and/or radiotherapy. Almost all had received systemic anticancer therapy (SACT). Of these, a sub-group of 902 patients were identified who had carboplatin-paclitaxel SACT only.
Long-term outcomes were poor for this patient population, particularly the carboplatin–paclitaxel sub cohort, where patients did not receive radiotherapy and had predominantly metastatic disease. These results highlight the unmet need for more durable 1L treatment options to prevent relapse and prolong survival in this patient population. This real-world study will help contextualise anticipated results from ongoing phase III clinical trials investigating novel ICI treatments.