Time-of-day infusion of immunotherapy may impact outcomes in advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients (NSCLC).

e21126 Background: Circadian rhythms have shown direct impact on toxicity and efficacy of anticancer treatments. Adaptive immune responses related to (or associated with) check point inhibitor (CPI) administration may have lower intensity later in the day. Notably, emerging evidence suggests that the time-of-day administration of different immunotherapies could have survival implications in different tumor types. Methods: We extracted de-identified data from curated the Real-World database of the Oncoclínicas Group, including 21 community-oncology practices in Brazil with EHR information on time-of-day administration of CPI in patients with advanced NSCLC. Only patients treated with single-agent CPIs with palliative intent (Nivolumab, Pembrolizumab or Atezolizumab) from Jan 2018 through Dec 2021 were analyzed. The primary endpoint was a comparative analysis of the median Time to Treatment Discontinuation (TTD) of CPI stratified according to time-of-day administration using a propensity-score (PS) matching model. On the basis of previous reports, we selected the cutoff of 20% of CPI doses administered after 4:00 pm as the late-day subgroup. Variables included in PS matching were: age (< 60, 60+); line of therapy (1st, 2ndor beyond); gender (male, female), and CPI agent (Pembrolizumab vs. others). Results: From a total of 1,603 patients with advanced NSCLC treated at Oncoclínicas during the study period, 508 received CPI as per inclusion criteria. Median age was 73 years (36-94), 66% were male, 63% received CPI in the 1stline setting, 50% with Pembrolizumab. Overall, 219 CPI infusions (15%) occurred after 4:00 pm and 9% of the patients (n = 43) qualified as late-day infusion subgroup (more than 20% of infusions after 4pm). Median TTD was 4.9 months (CI 95%, 2.83-13.5) in these patients. In the PS matched population with early-day infusions (2:1, n = 86), median TTD was 14 months (CI 95%, 8.87-23.4). Overall, with 73 events in 129 patients, we found a significantly increased risk of treatment discontinuation in the late-day subgroup (HR 1.61, CI95% 1.0-2.6, p = 0.05). With only 33 death events and median follow-up of 11 months, median overall survival was not reached in late-day or early-day subgroups (HR 1.25, CI95% 0.6-2.6, p = 0.5). Conclusions: This preliminary and exploratory real-world data analysis suggests that the time-of-day administration of CPI in patients with advanced NSCLC could have a meaningful impact on patient outcomes, in line with studies conducted in melanoma. This simple and inexpensive intervention merits further exploration in prospective controlled clinical trials.