Evaluation of the Treatment Duration of Japanese Patients With Pancreatic Cancer in a Real-World Setting Using a Large Hospital Claims Database: The SUISEI Study

Hideki Ueno; Kyoko Shimizu; Ayako Fukui; Masahiro Nii; Ryo Koto; Michiaki Unno

doi:10.1097/MPA.0000000000002321

Evaluation of the Treatment Duration of Japanese Patients With Pancreatic Cancer in a Real-World Setting Using a Large Hospital Claims Database: The SUISEI Study

Pancreas. 2024 May 17. doi: 10.1097/MPA.0000000000002321. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Hideki Ueno¹, Kyoko Shimizu², Ayako Fukui³, Masahiro Nii⁴, Ryo Koto³, Michiaki Unno⁵

Affiliations

¹ From the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo.
² Department of Gastroenterology, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo.
³ Medical Department and.
⁴ Biometrics, R&D, AstraZeneca K.K., Osaka.
⁵ Department of Surgery, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan.

PMID: 38767967
DOI: 10.1097/MPA.0000000000002321

Abstract

Objectives: To clarify the treatment reality of pancreatic cancer in Japan, focusing on treatment duration and time to death.

Materials and methods: We retrospectively analyzed Japanese hospital claims data for patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer between April 2009 and October 2018 to investigate treatment patterns, duration of first-line chemotherapy, and time to death.

Results: Of 81,185 eligible patients, 54.2% were male, the mean age was 71.7 years, and 23.3% (n = 18,884) received chemotherapy as primary treatment. The median treatment duration was 14.1 weeks for the 6.7% of patients who received oxaliplatin, irinotecan, fluorouracil, and leucovorin (FOLFIRINOX; recommended first-line regimen) and 16.9 weeks for the 30.2% of patients who received gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel (GEM + nab-PTX). Time to death for patients who received FOLFIRINOX or GEM + nab-PTX was similar (15.4 and 14.8 months, respectively). The duration of first-line chemotherapy regimens tended to increase annually for both regimens. The time to death for all first-line chemotherapy regimens also increased annually.

Conclusions: This study revealed the treatment reality of pancreatic cancer in the real-world Japanese setting. Treatment duration and time to death tended to increase over time and did not differ numerically between FOLFIRINOX and GEM + nab-PTX.