NSCLC Advancements Offer Hope, but Disparities Persist

The advent of immunotherapies, bispecifics, and antibody drug conjugates have transformed the treatment landscape for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Not only have these advancements helped tailor more targeted interventions, but they have also improved patients’ quality of life, said Ioana Bonta, MD, Georgia Cancer Specialists, in an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care®.

These topics and more were explored at a recent Institute for Value Based Medicine® event held in Atlanta, Georgia.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

What do you consider the most influential advancements in NSCLC treatment in recent years, and how have they shaped patient outcomes?

It certainly has been a very dense time for development in non-small cell lung cancer, and the advent of immunotherapy and targeted therapy really made an impact in the outcomes for our patients. So, I really think immunotherapy is one of the main advancements. I don't know what other words to use, but also more recently, combinations of immunotherapy with targeted therapy, also ADCs seem to make a difference in progression-free survival, and hopefully overall survival soon.

Bispecific therapies are also coming into the field of non-small cell lung cancer. In terms of what is the impact? What we look at is the quality of life. Are those therapies better tolerated by our patients? Are the side effects more tolerable than our conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy? And yes, we do see an improvement in the quality of life and also, very importantly, in the outcome such as progression-free survival and, very important, overall survival of our patients

How have recent advancements in NSCLC helped address care gaps or reduce disparities in access and outcomes?

First of all, it allowed us to identify those disparities, to see their differences. And we know in minority populations, such as Black populations, Latinx populations, there's an increase in mortality from lung cancer. And while this is true for the Caucasian population, for instance, it is actually more pronounced in the minority populations. So very important was to actually identify those disparities actually exist. Also we know the comorbidities in the minority population are more pronounced, and [this] makes the delivery of the immunotherapy, targeted therapy, any cancer therapy, in general, more difficult.

Also when talking about disparities, we have to mention access care, to health care, and not only system issues, but also patient issues such as cultural acceptance, such as trust issues, socioeconomic status, and education level.