Laura Joszt, MA

While minimal residual disease (MRD) is being used to assess response to treatment in multiple myeloma (MM), the level of risk a patient has can make a big different in how well MRD works as a prognostic indicator, according to 2 abstracts presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Although health equity has been a stated public health goal, new research shows that there has been a lack of progress on health equity in the last 25 years in the United States, indicating that the country must either work harder to promote health equity or must find out which policies would produce greater improvements in health equity.

Bringing together different stakeholders in healthcare to share the challenges they see and their own understanding of how to fix the problem can help make impossible things happen and bring change to the healthcare system, said Elizabeth Mitchell, president and chief executive officer, Pacific Business Group on Health.

Treating illnesses is important, but it would be a mistake to think that is the full extent of health. Panelists during the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions’ 2019 Leadership Summits, held June 24-26 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, discussed the impact of social determinants and past trauma on health and how employers can ensure they are addressing these issues to improve health and outcomes.

Postural sway, the tendency to sway even while standing still, is an independent risk factor for bone fractures in postmenopausal women.

Patients with pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (MS) not only have lower cognitive scores in adulthood than patients with adult-onset MS, but cognitive scores declined faster.

Coverage from The American Journal of Managed Care's® Institue for Value-Based Medicine® meetings.

Bone is one of the most frequent sites of metastasis in breast cancer, but the exact reasons for this high risk of bone metastases has not been well understood. However, research has found that physics may be partly the reason for this high risk.

Currently, the number of patients who are actually utilizing precision cancer care treatments is small, but it is growing fast. As that happens, physicians will need to get comfortable with ordering the right tests, explained Clynt Taylor, chief executive officer of Intervention Insights, and Lee Newcomer, MD, formerly of UnitedHealth Group.

The FDA is partnering with COTA, a precision medicine technology company, to gain better insight into treatment variation within subpopulations of patients using real-world data. The program will start with breast cancer and may expand to other cancer types.

Skeletal-related events are frequent complications in patients with cancers. Two abstracts analyzed the use of bone-modifying agents in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma and breast cancer.

The results of the NCI-MATCH precision medicine trial showed that a drug combination designed to target cancers with certain BRAF gene mutations was effective.

Both the FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) have accepted applications to review ozanimod, an oral sphingosine 1-phosphate receptor modulator, for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS).

The concept of value is well known among health policy experts, the payer community, and policy makers, but patients do not necessarily have the same idea of what value means.

As increasing attention is paid to the cost of healthcare, there are growing efforts to steer patients toward high-value care. New research published in JAMA Network Open compared teaching hospitals with nonteaching hospitals to determine the total cost for common conditions.

The government taking a backseat has opened the market up to disrupters from outside the healthcare industry.

If employers want to be able to have an impact on the healthcare system and help create lower cost, more effective markets, they need to get informed, get tough, and get smart, said David Blumenthal, MD, president and chief executive officer, The Commonwealth Fund, during the 2019 Annual Conference of the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health.

Two abstracts presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers analyzed biomarkers to predict progression, disease severity, and cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Bone metastases can cause pain in patients with cancer, and 2 abstracts presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting evaluated treating this pain.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, higher levels of genomic instability have been associated with lower immunogenicity, which means drugs are less effective, in patients with BRCA1/2-related breast cancers, according to research published in Clinical Cancer Research.

Two abstracts at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting analyzed bone metastases in cancer.

Long-term use of ozanimod may be associated with improved cognitive speed and higher rates of no evidence of disease activity among patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS), according to 2 new abstracts presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers.

Creating a healthcare system that prioritizes a well-informed consumer and rewards improvements in quality requires overhauling the current system. Through a series of programs and initiatives, CMS, under Administrator Seema Verma’s leadership, is trying to fix some of the issues that plague the current US health system and make accessing care challenging for patients.

Testing for minimal residual disease (MRD) is increasingly being used in patients with cancer because deep MRD negativity is associated with better outcomes for patients and MRD status can help make decisions regarding treatment. Two abstracts presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting validated use of MRD testing in the real world and found it was cost-effective.

Patients who switched from ozanimod HCI 0.5 mg or interferon β-1a to ozanimod HCI 1.0 mg in an open-label extension study experienced sustained reduction in their annualized relapse rate. Patients who continued on with the 1.0 mg dose also experienced a sustained reduction.

Spanish researchers have identified 3 biomarkers, including minimal residual disease negativity, that can help define those elderly patients with multiple myeloma (MM) who are likely to achieve long-term disease control.

New research has identified how bone cells subdue cancer cells that have reached the bone so that the cancer cells remain dormant for decades. The finding may help researchers develop new treatments to prevent or treat metastatic disease and put cancer cells to sleep permanently.