Treatment patterns of patients with HR+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer receiving CDK4/6 inhibitor-based regimens: a cohort study in the French nationwide healthcare database

To assess real-world treatment patterns in patients diagnosed with hormone receptor positive (HR+), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HER2-) metastatic breast cancer (mBC) who received cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors in combination with an aromatase inhibitor (AI) or fulvestrant at first line.

Patient characteristics, treatment history, and outcomes data were extracted from the French ‘Système National des Données de Santé’ (SNDS) database for patients diagnosed with HR+/HER2- mBC between January 2014 and June 2019 and who received combination therapy with a CDK4/6 inhibitor and endocrine therapy. Kaplan-Meier methodology was used to assess time to next treatment (TTNT) and time to treatment discontinuation (TTTD).

The cohort comprised 6061 patients including 4032 patients who received CDK4/6 inhibitors + AIs and 2029 patients who received CDK4/6 inhibitors + fulvestrant. Median follow-up was 13.5 months (IQR 9.5–18.1). The median TTTD of first line treatment with CDK4/6 inhibitors + AIs and CDK4/6 inhibitors + fulvestrant was 17.3 months (95% CI 16.8–17.9) and 9.7 months (95% CI 9.0–10.2), respectively. Chemotherapy was the most common second line therapy. Median TTTD of subsequent treatment lines was progressively shorter following first line treatment with CDK4/6 inhibitors + AIs (2nd line: 4.6 months (95% CI 4.4–4.9) and with CDK4/6 inhibitors + fulvestrant (2nd line: 4.7 months (95% CI 4.3–5.1). TTNT was longer than TTTD across lines of therapy.

This real-world analysis confirms the effectiveness of CDK4/6 inhibitor-based regimens in French patients and highlights the frequent use of chemotherapy as second line therapy.