Multi-Institutional Patterns of Use of Tumor-Treating Fields for Patients with Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma.
Tugce KutukJoshua M WalkerMatthew T BalloRobert B CameronJean Bustamante AlvarezSheema ChawlaEric LukDeepti BehlAlan Dal PraNeil MorgansteinTamer RefaatArshin SheybaniChristian SquillanteLimin ZhangRupesh R KotechaPublished in: Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) (2023)
(1) Background: The objective of this analysis was to evaluate the device usage rates and patterns of use regarding Tumor-Treating Fields (TTFields) for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) throughout the US. (2) Methods: We evaluated de-identified data from 33 patients with MPM enrolled in FDA-required HDE protocols at 14 institutions across the US from September 2019 to March 2022. (3) Results: The median number of total TTFields usage days was 72 (range: 6-649 days), and the total treatment duration was 160 months for all patients. A low usage rate (defined as less than 6 h per day, 25%) was observed in 34 (21.2%) months. The median TTFields usage in the first 3 months was 12 h per day (range: 1.9-21.6 h), representing 50% (range: 8-90%) of the potential daily duration. The median TTFields usage after 3 months decreased to 9.1 h per day (range: 3.1-17 h), representing 38% (range: 13-71%) of the daily duration, and was lower than usage in the first 3 months ( p = 0.01). (4) Conclusions: This study represents the first multicenter analysis of real-world TTFields usage based on usage patterns for MPM patients in clinical practice. The real-world usage level was lower than the suggested daily usage. Further initiatives and guidelines should be developed to evaluate the impact of this finding on tumor control.