Patients diagnosed with advanced gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors often choose a combination of treatment options, according to research presented at the 2017 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
The researchers identified 682 patients with gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. They analyzed patients based on medications, which were categorized as cytotoxic agents, angiogenesis inhibitors, mTOR inhibitors, interferons, somatostatin analogues or investigational therapies; combination therapy was defined as multiple treatments that overlapped by 30 or more days.
Here's what you need to know:
1. The majority of patients (89 percent) initiated at least one medication for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.
2. The initial treatments included somatostatin analogues (59.5 percent), somatostatin analogue combination therapies (17.5 percent), cytotoxic agents (14.8 percent), investigational therapies (3 percent), non-somatostatin analogue combination therapies (2.8 percent), angiogenesis inhibitors (1.2 percent), interferons (0.7 percent) and mTOR inhibitors (0.5 percent).
3. Of the patients who underwent the most common treatment option, somatostatin analogue monotherapy, 68.4 percent continued with the treatment until end of follow-up or death.
4. Of the patients who chose to engage in a second line of treatment, the majority (90.5 percent) took somatostatin analogues; similarly, 86.7 percent of third line therapy patients were on somatostatin analogues. Many of these patients also used this therapy during their preceding treatment lines.
5. The most common combination therapies with somatostatin analogues included cytotoxic agents, followed by angiogenesis inhibitors.
"SSA monotherapy and SSA combination therapy with CA were the most common treatments for metastatic GEP-NET," the researchers concluded.