Enhancing care of patients with HR+/HER2- early breast cancer at high risk of recurrence through an expansive curriculum: Real world outcomes (RWO) from a 6 month analysis.

Abstract

e12509 Background: Although therapies for patients with HR+/HER2- early breast cancer have been available for several years, a number of clinical gaps remain present. These gaps minimize the optimization of care in this patient population. In an effort to overcome these gaps a large educational curriculum was developed to improve the learner’s ability to identify patients at high risk of recurrence, optimize treatment selection according to the biology of the disease, and improve adherence to therapy. Methods: The curriculum included 11 online CME activities that were distributed between October 2023 and May 2024. This study focuses on the 9 that launched between Oct and Dec 2023. A previous analysis illustrated the improvement of oncologists’ knowledge, competence, and confidence along the three core learning areas mentioned above. This RWO study was designed to assess the impact of the CME curriculum on the treatment selection of oncologists in managing patients with early breast cancer according to the biology of the disease. A retrospective matched case-control study was conducted to examine the primary outcome of interest—the number of patients with early breast cancer who also were managed according to guideline-based treatments. Medical and pharmacy claims were aggregated with patients and the coding oncologists between May 2023 to Sep 2024. Learners and non-learners were matched based upon specialty, geographic location. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to assess the difference in number of patients treated according to the biology of their disease for CME learners versus control. Data were pulled for 6 months pre and 6 months-post first CME activity participation date (“index date”). Results: The sample analyzed includes 3,098 oncologist CME learners and 3,098 matched comparison non-participants in the CME activities who participated in activities between November 2023 and March 2024. All data are time aligned 6 months pre-/post-index date. ANCOVA results show a significant effect of CME on the proportion of patients who receive biology-based care (F(1,6190 ) = 33.79 ; P = .001), controlling for the proportion of patients who were already receiving biology-based care in the pre-period. There were 26% more patients (n=1,148) who received biology-based care in the 6 months post among the learner group compared to the control group, and 19% (n=139) more oncologists changed their practice in the CME group than the control group. Conclusions: The results of this RWO study confirms that participation in 1 or more activities within a CME curriculum is associated with improving the adoption of the latest clinical guideline recommendations by oncologists, aiming to improve the management and outcomes of HR+/HER2- EBC in patients.