(UroToday.com) The 2023 GU ASCO annual meeting included a session on prostate cancer, featuring a presentation by Dr. Luka Flegar discussing lutetium-177 PSMA radioligand therapy for metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) in Germany. The purpose of this study was to investigate the adoption and current trends of Lutetium-177 PSMA radioligand therapy.
Dr. Flegar and colleagues analyzed the nationwide German hospital billing database (Destatis) and the hospitals’ quality reports for 177Lutetium PSMA radioligand therapy from 2016 to 2020 using the reimbursement.INFO tool. For detection of trends over time the authors applied linear regression models. For validation of these billing data, they included a total of 1,239 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapy cycles from 392 patients within the WARMTH multicenter study from 2016 to 2018. Additionally, they included the 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapy cycles from two participating institutions from 2016 to 2020 for further validation.
This study identified 12,553 cases which were treated with 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapy. The number of 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapies steadily increased from 1,026 to 3,328 therapies during the study period (+576 radioligand therapy/year; p<0.005):
In 2016, 25 departments of nuclear medicine offered this treatment, which increased to 44 nuclear medicine departments in 2020:
In 2016, 16% of nuclear medicine departments (4/25) performed more than 100 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapies, which increased to 36% (16/44) in 2020 (p<0.005). In 2016, 88% (22/25) of 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapies were performed at a university hospital, which decreased to 70% (31/44) in 2020. The proportion of patients older than 65 years receiving 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapy increased from 78% in 2016 to 81% in 2020.
Dr. Flegar concluded his presentation discussing lutetium-177 PSMA radioligand therapy for mCRPC in Germany with the following take-home messages:
- Treatment of mCRPC with 177Lu-PSMA radioligand therapy has been rapidly increasing in Germany in the recent years providing an additional therapy option
- This development is remarkable, because the therapy was only formally approved by the EMA in December 2022
Presented by: Luka Flegar, University Hospital Marburg Department of Urology, Marburg, Germany
Co-Authors: Smita George Thoduka, Damiano Librizzi, Markus Luster, Aristeidis Zacharis, Hendrik Heers, Nicole Eisenmenger, Hojjat Ahmadzadehfar, Matthias Eiber, Wolfgang A Weber, Christer Groeben, Johannes Huber
Written by: Zachary Klaassen, MD, MSc – Urologic Oncologist, Assistant Professor of Urology, Georgia Cancer Center, Augusta University/Medical College of Georgia, @zklaassen_md on Twitter during the 2023 Genitourinary (GU) American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, Thurs, Feb 16 – Sat, Feb 18, 2023.