1. Access to treatment among patients with advanced kidney cancer in Mexico
- Author
-
Carlos Eduardo Salazar-Mejía, Antonio Piñeiro-Martínez, Angela Leticia Juárez-Villarreal, Arianna Elizabeth Jara-Rios, Ana Patricia Ibarra-Alaniz, Blanca Otilia Wimer-Castillo, David Hernandez-Barajas, Oscar Vidal-Gutiérrez, Lauro Gómez-Guerra, and Omar Alejandro Zayas-Villanueva
- Subjects
Cancer Research ,Oncology ,General Engineering - Abstract
130 Background: The socioeconomic status of patients diagnosed with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) in developing countries could in many cases limit their access to the best available therapeutic options. We aimed to describe the clinical characteristics and access to treatment of Mexican patients with mRCC. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of all patients with a histopathologically confirmed diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma who were treated at an oncology referral center in Northeast Mexico over a 5-year period. Results: We included 233 patients in the analysis, of whom 63% were men. The mean age at diagnosis was 58.2 years; 87% of the tumors were histopathologically classified as clear cell carcinoma. Regarding laterality, 54% of the tumors originated from the right kidney. The distribution of cases by clinical stage (CS) was as follows: CS I 15%, CS II 8%, CS III 17%, CS IV 60%. All of the included patients had government health insurance coverage; however, specific treatment for renal cell cancer was not included in this coverage. In terms of access to first-line systemic management in the 139 patients with advanced kidney cancer who were candidates for treatment, 29% received treatment with a single-drug tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), 4% were treated with combined or single-drug immunotherapy (IO), and 12% were treated with TKI combined with IO. All but one patient who was treated with a single drug or a combination of IO received these drugs in the context of a clinical trial. Fifty-five percent of patients with advanced disease did not have access to standard first-line therapy. The rate of loss to medical follow-up was 69% of cases. Conclusions: Despite the proven oncological benefit of the latest generation of therapies based on IO/IO or IO/TKI for mRCC, access to first-line standard management is still poor in our country, even with single agent TKI. Public health programs should be implemented to expand therapeutic options for this group of patients.
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF