Abstract P5-16-02: Variance between experts and community practitioners in treatment of metastatic breast cancer
Authors: Quill TA , Blackwell KL , Hurvitz S , Miller KD , Robert N , Obholz KL , Jahanzeb M 
Published: February 2018

Background

New treatment options continue to improve outcomes for patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). However, clinicians' lack of clinical experience using new agents, a complex treatment landscape, and the broad treatment recommendations in available guidelines can make the choice of an optimal treatment for individual patients with MBC challenging. An online treatment decision support tool was developed to overcome these challenges and provide recommendations from multiple experts for specific MBC patient scenarios. Here we report data comparing expert treatment recommendations with the intended treatment indicated by clinicians using the tool.

Methods

In October 2016, 5 breast cancer experts provided treatment consultation for 492 unique MBC case scenarios based on a simplified set of variables: disease phenotype, previous systemic therapy, visceral crisis (yes/no), and rate of disease progression. These patient and disease characteristics along with expert treatment consultation were used to develop the treatment decision tool. Clinicians used drop-down menus to enter patient and disease factors along with their intended treatment plan. When completed, the experts' treatment recommendations for that specific patient case were shown to the clinicians, at which point the users were asked to indicate if the expert recommendations changed their planned treatment.

Results

From December 2016 through April 2017, 619 healthcare providers entered 1018 patient case scenarios in the online MBC tool representing the following phenotypes: HR+/HER2- (53%), HR-/HER2+ (10%), HR+/HER2+ (14%), and triple-negative breast cancer (23%). A comparison of expert and community oncologist treatment choices in select patient case scenarios with expert consensus is shown in the table. Among participating oncologists whose initial intended treatment of MBC differed from the experts, 51% indicated that they would change their choice of therapy.

Conclusions

MBC therapy continues to evolve with new agents having a large impact on how experts treat MBC. Data from the online MBC treatment decision support tool indicate variance in expert and oncologist treatment choices for many case scenarios. Moreover, consensus expert recommendations in this online tool changed the intended treatment plan of many using it and, therefore, can help optimize the care of patients with MBC. A detailed analysis of self-identified practice trends among those using the online tool, along with a comparison of expert and participating oncologist treatment choices for different MBC case scenarios, will be presented.

MBC Case ScenarioMajority Consensus Recommendation Among Experts, %Tool Cases Where Oncologist Intended Treatment Matched the Expert Consensus Recommendation, %HR+/HER2- (no visceral crisis)•De novoPalbociclib + letrozole: 10023•Previous (neo)adjuvant AIPalbociclib + fulvestrant: 9219•Previous palbociclib + letrozoleFulvestrant: 820•Previous palbociclib + fulvestrantEverolimus + exemestane: 8750HR-/HER2+•De novoTHP: 10068•Previous pertuzumabT-DM1: 10066Triple-negative breast cancer•Visceral crisisCombination CT: 9139•No visceral crisis, fast progressionSingle-agent CT: 7250AI, aromatase inhibitor; CT, chemotherapy.

Citation Format: Quill TA, Blackwell KL, Hurvitz S, Miller KD, Robert N, Obholz KL, Jahanzeb M. Variance between experts and community practitioners in treatment of metastatic breast cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2017 Dec 5-9; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P5-16-02.