Facility-Level Medical Oncology Specialist Availability and First-Line Time to Treatment Failure in Lung Cancer: A Nationwide C-CAT Registry Analysis
Simple Summary
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Study Design and Data Source
2.2. Study Cohort and Analytic Datasets
2.3. Facility-Level Specialist Availability Variables
2.4. Primary Endpoint and Censoring
2.5. Endpoint Ascertainment and Data Completeness
2.6. Statistical Analysis
2.7. Ethics and Informed Consent
3. Results
3.1. Study Cohort and Baseline Characteristics
3.2. Primary Endpoint Ascertainment
3.3. First-Line TTF by JSMO Specialist Availability
3.4. Primary Cox Models
3.5. Secondary High-Confidence Dual JSMO/JRS Availability Analysis
3.6. Supportive Overall Survival Analyses
4. Discussion
4.1. Principal Findings
4.2. Interpretation as a Facility-Level Oncology Infrastructure Signal
4.3. Relevance to CGP-Era Real-World Oncology Practice
4.4. Secondary Dual JSMO/JRS and Supportive OS Analyses
4.5. Implications for Future National Clinical Databases
4.6. Limitations
5. Conclusions
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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| Variable | Level/Statistic | Overall | 0–1 JSMO Specialists | ≥2 JSMO Specialists |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patients | N | 5456 | 1477 | 3979 |
| Facilities | N | 241 | 97 | 144 |
| Age | Median (IQR), years | 66 (57–73) | 66 (58–73) | 66 (57–73) |
| Age group | <65 years | 2443/5456 (44.8%) | 645/1477 (43.7%) | 1798/3979 (45.2%) |
| 65–74 years | 2003/5456 (36.7%) | 563/1477 (38.1%) | 1440/3979 (36.2%) | |
| ≥75 years | 1010/5456 (18.5%) | 269/1477 (18.2%) | 741/3979 (18.6%) | |
| Sex | Female | 2029/5456 (37.2%) | 534/1477 (36.2%) | 1495/3979 (37.6%) |
| Male | 3427/5456 (62.8%) | 943/1477 (63.8%) | 2484/3979 (62.4%) | |
| ECOG PS | 0 | 2150/5456 (39.4%) | 658/1477 (44.5%) | 1492/3979 (37.5%) |
| 1 | 2893/5456 (53.0%) | 711/1477 (48.1%) | 2182/3979 (54.8%) | |
| ≥2 | 334/5456 (6.1%) | 76/1477 (5.1%) | 258/3979 (6.5%) | |
| Unknown/missing | 79/5456 (1.4%) | 32/1477 (2.2%) | 47/3979 (1.2%) | |
| Lung histology/subtype | Adenocarcinoma | 3459/5456 (63.4%) | 970/1477 (65.7%) | 2489/3979 (62.6%) |
| Squamous cell carcinoma | 607/5456 (11.1%) | 154/1477 (10.4%) | 453/3979 (11.4%) | |
| Small-cell lung cancer | 377/5456 (6.9%) | 96/1477 (6.5%) | 281/3979 (7.1%) | |
| Large-cell/neuroendocrine carcinoma | 154/5456 (2.8%) | 41/1477 (2.8%) | 113/3979 (2.8%) | |
| Other non-small-cell lung cancer | 655/5456 (12.0%) | 179/1477 (12.1%) | 476/3979 (12.0%) | |
| Unknown/missing | 204/5456 (3.7%) | 37/1477 (2.5%) | 167/3979 (4.2%) | |
| Specimen type | Tissue | 3912/5456 (71.7%) | 990/1477 (67.0%) | 2922/3979 (73.4%) |
| Blood/liquid | 1542/5456 (28.3%) | 486/1477 (32.9%) | 1056/3979 (26.5%) | |
| Other | 2/5456 (0.0%) | 1/1477 (0.1%) | 1/3979 (0.0%) | |
| Panel type | FoundationOne CDx | 3334/5456 (61.1%) | 899/1477 (60.9%) | 2435/3979 (61.2%) |
| FoundationOne Liquid CDx | 1361/5456 (24.9%) | 415/1477 (28.1%) | 946/3979 (23.8%) | |
| NCC Oncopanel | 420/5456 (7.7%) | 78/1477 (5.3%) | 342/3979 (8.6%) | |
| Guardant360 | 193/5456 (3.5%) | 73/1477 (4.9%) | 120/3979 (3.0%) | |
| GenMineTOP | 148/5456 (2.7%) | 12/1477 (0.8%) | 136/3979 (3.4%) | |
| Treatment start year | Median (IQR) | 2021 (2019–2022) | 2021 (2019–2022) | 2021 (2019–2022) |
| Genome medicine facility category | Core hospital | 856/5456 (15.7%) | 0/1477 (0.0%) | 856/3979 (21.5%) |
| Hub hospital | 1460/5456 (26.8%) | 99/1477 (6.7%) | 1361/3979 (34.2%) | |
| Liaison hospital | 3140/5456 (57.6%) | 1378/1477 (93.3%) | 1762/3979 (44.3%) | |
| JRS specialist availability | 0–1 JRS specialists | 88/5456 (1.6%) | 19/1477 (1.3%) | 69/3979 (1.7%) |
| ≥2 JRS specialists | 5368/5456 (98.4%) | 1458/1477 (98.7%) | 3910/3979 (98.3%) | |
| High-confidence dual JSMO/JRS availability | No dual JSMO/JRS | 2782/5456 (51.0%) | 1311/1477 (88.8%) | 1471/3979 (37.0%) |
| Dual JSMO/JRS | 2674/5456 (49.0%) | 166/1477 (11.2%) | 2508/3979 (63.0%) | |
| Facility has both JSMO and JRS availability | No combined JSMO/JRS availability | 579/5456 (10.6%) | 573/1477 (38.8%) | 6/3979 (0.2%) |
| Combined JSMO/JRS availability | 4877/5456 (89.4%) | 904/1477 (61.2%) | 3973/3979 (99.8%) | |
| Smoking status | Never smoker | 1590/5456 (29.1%) | 438/1477 (29.7%) | 1152/3979 (29.0%) |
| Ever smoker | 3773/5456 (69.2%) | 1019/1477 (69.0%) | 2754/3979 (69.2%) | |
| Unknown/missing | 93/5456 (1.7%) | 20/1477 (1.4%) | 73/3979 (1.8%) |
| Panel A. First-Line TTF Ascertainment by Facility-Level JSMO Specialist Availability | ||||||
| Metric | 0–1 JSMO Specialists | ≥2 JSMO Specialists | Interpretive Note | |||
| C-CAT-defined lung cancer cases | 1580 | 4158 | Pre-endpoint-exclusion denominator. | |||
| Facilities | 98 | 145 | C-CAT-defined denominator; analyzable facilities: 97 and 144. | |||
| First-line TTF analyzable | 1477/1580 (93.5%) | 3979/4158 (95.7%) | Used as the primary endpoint denominator. | |||
| First-line TTF events among analyzable | 1370/1477 (92.8%) | 3597/3979 (90.4%) | Recorded first-line treatment end or death, whichever occurred first. | |||
| Censored among analyzable | 107/1477 (7.2%) | 382/3979 (9.6%) | No recorded first-line treatment end or death; censored at the recorded non-death censoring date. | |||
| Negative interval | 3/1580 (0.2%) | 8/4158 (0.2%) | Excluded from the primary endpoint denominator. | |||
| Excluded from primary denominator | 103/1580 (6.5%) | 179/4158 (4.3%) | Missing dates or negative intervals. | |||
| Observed time to event or censoring, median (IQR), months | 4.2 (2.3–11.5) | 5.0 (2.5–13.4) | Median (IQR) among primary endpoint analyzable cases. | |||
| Panel B. Cox models with primary facility-cluster robust inference | ||||||
| Exposure | Model | HR | Robust 95% CI | Robust p value | n/events | Facility clusters |
| ≥2 vs. 0–1 registry-listed JSMO specialists | Model 1: unadjusted | 0.871 | 0.779–0.975 | 0.016 | 5456/4967 | 241 |
| Model 2: facility-category adjusted | 0.944 | 0.844–1.056 | 0.315 | 5456/4967 | 241 | |
| Model 3: facility-category + treatment-start-year adjusted | 0.937 | 0.834–1.053 | 0.275 | 5456/4967 | 241 | |
| Model 4: core clinical adjusted | 0.907 | 0.803–1.024 | 0.115 | 5188/4748 | 238 | |
| Model 5: full clinical adjusted | 0.911 | 0.806–1.029 | 0.133 | 5188/4748 | 238 | |
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Kajiura, S.; Satake, H.; Hayashi, R.; Yoshino, T. Facility-Level Medical Oncology Specialist Availability and First-Line Time to Treatment Failure in Lung Cancer: A Nationwide C-CAT Registry Analysis. Curr. Oncol. 2026, 33, 462. https://doi.org/10.3390/curroncol33080462
Kajiura S, Satake H, Hayashi R, Yoshino T. Facility-Level Medical Oncology Specialist Availability and First-Line Time to Treatment Failure in Lung Cancer: A Nationwide C-CAT Registry Analysis. Current Oncology. 2026; 33(8):462. https://doi.org/10.3390/curroncol33080462
Chicago/Turabian StyleKajiura, Shinya, Hironaga Satake, Ryuji Hayashi, and Takayuki Yoshino. 2026. "Facility-Level Medical Oncology Specialist Availability and First-Line Time to Treatment Failure in Lung Cancer: A Nationwide C-CAT Registry Analysis" Current Oncology 33, no. 8: 462. https://doi.org/10.3390/curroncol33080462
APA StyleKajiura, S., Satake, H., Hayashi, R., & Yoshino, T. (2026). Facility-Level Medical Oncology Specialist Availability and First-Line Time to Treatment Failure in Lung Cancer: A Nationwide C-CAT Registry Analysis. Current Oncology, 33(8), 462. https://doi.org/10.3390/curroncol33080462

