Treatment at twilight: Is less more in the management of octogenarians with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)

9042 Background: Treatment of advanced/metastatic NSCLC in older patients is hindered by performance status, comorbidities, and treatment toxicities. Moreover, whether multiagent chemotherapy in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy outweighs a conservative approach is controversial. This study aims to assess treatment patterns and outcomes in patients ≥80 years with NSCLC through data provided by the national cancer database (NCDB). Methods: Adults ≥80 years with stage III/IV NSCLC, available treatment data, and diagnosis between 2015-2018 were included. Patients were stratified by therapy including none, ICI alone, chemotherapy alone, and chemotherapy+ICI; radiation and surgical management was also assessed. Median overall survival (OS) was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier survival methods, and differences were assessed by hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). The mean difference in OS was compared between systemic therapy arms. Pearson Chi-Squared tests assessed the significance of treatment differences, with a p-value of < 0.05 considered statistically significant. Results: There were 42,356 patients included; 29,698 (70.1%) had stage IV disease and 26,314 (62.1%) had adenocarcinoma. A total of 3,248 (7.7%) received ICI, 11,505 (27.2%) received chemotherapy, 2,393 (5.6%) received chemotherapy+ICI, and 25,210 (59.5%) received no therapy. Median OS for no therapy, ICI, chemotherapy, and chemotherapy+ICI was 2.63 (95% CI: 2.57, 2.69), 10.68 (95% CI: 9.96, 11.39), 12.35 (95% CI: 11.98, 12.72), and 14.03 (95% CI: 13.87, 14.88) months, respectively. Compared to no therapy, ICI alone (HR: 0.377 [95% CI: 0.361, 0.393], p = 0.000), chemotherapy alone (HR: 0.439 [95% CI: 0.426, 0.452], p = 0.000), and chemotherapy+ICI (HR: 0.345 [95% CI 0.328, 0.363], p = 0.000) improved OS. Compared to ICI, chemotherapy and chemotherapy+ICI had a longer mean OS difference of 2.48 (95% CI 1.82, 3.13) (p < 0.001) and 1.9 (95% CI 1.01, 2.78 (p < 0.001) months, respectively. In chemotherapy alone, the median OS was 1.12 months (95% CI: 0.55, 1.70) (p < 0.001) longer with multiagent vs single agent. There was no difference between chemotherapy vs chemotherapy+ICI (0.57 months [95% CI: 0.16, 1.31], p = 0.234), or for ICI+single agent vs ICI+multiagent (0.67 months [95% CI -1.18, 2.54], p = 1.00). Treatment with radiation (HR: 0.664 [95% CI: 0.649, 0.679], p < 0.001), primary-sit(HR: 0.495 [95% CI: 0.465, 0.527], p < 0.001) and non-primary surgery (HR: 0.867 [95% CI: 0.811, 0.927], p < 0.001), and receipt of ICI vs no ICI (HR: 0.912 [95% CI 0.873, 0.954], p < 0.001) improved OS. Conclusions: Patients ≥80 years with NSCLC derived most benefit from multiagent chemotherapy or chemotherapy+ICI, with no OS difference between ICI+single or ICI+multiagent therapy. ICI alone and no therapy had inferior OS. Future trials to corroborate this finding would benefit the elderly population.