Patient characteristics associated with treatment of cervical cancer in the United States.
e17020 Background: Treatment options for cervical cancer include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy depending upon the disease stage. There is limited real-world evidence providing us with a clinical profile for a treated cervical cancer patient. The objective of this study was to compare cervical cancer patients who were currently receiving treatment versus those not receiving treatment. Methods: This was a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data (2006-2015). Cervical cancer cases were identified using ICD-9 CM code 180 or clinical classification software code 26. Patients receiving only chemotherapy, radiation therapy, undergoing surgery, or a combination of these treatments in a given year were regarded as “currently receiving treatment”. The comparator cohort included patients “not currently receiving treatment”. The two cohorts were compared in terms of patient clinical characteristics using bivariate analyses. Results: The analytic cohort consisted of 275,246 cervical cancer cases (mean age: 42 years, Caucasian: 88.0%, having private insurance: 55.3%) of which 115,639 (42.01%) were “currently receiving treatment”. The most common treatment option was undergoing surgery only (88.21%), followed by combination therapy (6.82%), chemotherapy only (3.84%), and radiation therapy only (1.12%). The “currently receiving treatment” cohort had a significantly higher proportion of patients having a history of myocardial infarction (4.21% vs 3.50%), congestive heart failure (2.73% vs 1.42%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (29.5% vs 23.2%), connective tissue disease (20.5% vs 11.6%), renal disease (2.49% vs 0.48%), and diabetes (17.7% vs 11.7%) compared to those “not currently receiving treatment”. The latter cohort had a higher proportion of patients with moderate/severe liver disease (0.46% vs 5.32%). Conclusions: The observed real-world patient characteristics and treatment patterns were indicative of a cohort of largely early stage cervical cancer patients. Patients receiving treatment appeared to have a higher comorbidity burden which may subsequently result in poorer quality of life and activity limitations.