Maggie L. Shaw

In part 2 of our interview with Robinson, he addresses the potential for exacerbated health care disparities in the aftermath of hospital price markups and how insurance plan design often disadvantages the patients who most need expensive infusion therapies but cannot afford them.

Douglas K. Marks, MD, is a breast medical oncologist and director of the Clinical Trials Office, Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island, as well as associate professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine. As a phase 1 clinical trialist, he sees both patients with breast cancer and those who are looking to receive innovative treatments for their early-stage disease.

In the January issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, James Robinson, PhD, MPH, and his fellow investigators published their findings from an analysis of how insurer drug expenditures on infused drugs influenced price markups at hospitals.

Coverage in the February 2024 issue of Evidence-Based Oncology.

The combination of daratumumab and immumodulatory therapy was evaluated among patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) who have failed prior treatment with immunomodulatory agents, proteasome inhibitors, and daratumumab as monotherapy or in combination.

For this analysis, investigators used metagenomic sequencing files from the Gut Bugs trial, a placebo-controlled multidonor fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) trial conducted among adolescents classified as obese.

The Momentum trial from Sarepta Therapeutics is investigating SRP-5051 (vesleteplirsen) for use among male patients aged 8 to 21 years who have Duchenne muscular dystrophy amenable to exon 51 skipping.

Consolidation durvalumab led to comparable outcomes among older patients with unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) vs a younger cohort with the same cancer; this patient population was underrepresented in the PACIFIC trial.

In this interview, Chandler Cortina, MD, MS, FSSO, FACS, Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, addresses the impact that prioritizing mental health care can have on patients as they navigate through their cancer journey.

This retrospective analysis compared molecular testing outcomes among newly diagnosed cases of metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (mNSCLC) from 2 periods: March 2017 to May 2019 and July 2019 to March 2021.

Chandler Cortina, MD, MS, FSSO, FACS, is assistant professor of surgery and breast surgical oncologist at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin. His current research focuses on breast cancer risk not only in general but also among transgender and gender-diverse populations.

Clinical investigators evaluated the impact of home health services on disability status and receipt of treatment among adults 66 years and older with a new diagnosis of multiple myeloma (MM).

Miriam J. Atkins, MD, FACP, president of the Community Oncology Alliance, discusses the impact of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) on health care costs and offers potential ways to remedy certain CMS decisions that negatively affect oncologists and their patients.

The gene therapy delandistrogene moxeparvovec-rokl, also known as Elevidys (Sarepta Therapeutics) is indicated to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in ambulatory patients aged 4 to 5 years, and Sarepta recently filed supplemental data with the FDA seeking to expand the labeled indication.

This analysis compared outcomes among patients who have Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and commercial insurance or Medicaid, focusing on how these differ between patients in clinical trials and those who receive treatment post approval.

Outcomes were evaluated among veterans treated for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) from 2017 to 2020 with durvalumab, a PD-L1 inhibitor.

UPMC Health Plan member Marjorie Robinson, of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, tells of her experiences with Pittsburgh-based Fabric Health as a single mom of 2 teenagers and why she believes that mental health–related concerns can be significant obstacles to overall good health.

Patient survival and such treatment-related outcomes as time to treatment failure and treatment duration improved following implementation of a best practices program that focused on selinexor administration for multiple myeloma (MM), with implications for other anticancer medications.

Serena Sloane, a Pittsburgh-based certified nursing assistant, took advantage of a chance meeting at her laundromat with someone from Fabric Health to learn more about her options for bettering her health care benefits

MEDLINE, the Turning Research Into Practice database, Google Scholar, and organization guidelines were searched for their ongoing applicability to the management of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and to determine if there is a need to develop new treatment recommendations.

The TROP-2–directed antibody drug conjugate is currently being investigated as a monotherapy and a combination therapy for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in 3 trials: phase 3 EVOKE-01, phase 2 EVOKE-02, and phase 3 EVOKE-03.

This new economic valuation of the societal and health care benefits of gene therapy to treat sickle cell disease (SCD) concludes the highly personalized treatment has potential to be cost effective if priced below $2 million.

Registered dietitian, Molly Kimball, RD, CSSD, of Ochsner Health, navigates cultural identity in diet changes for long-term success, in an interview.

This literature review investigated outcomes related to relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (MM) among patients 65 years and older.

Molly Kimball, RD, CSSD, of Ochsner Health, advocates for sustainable changes to populations' everyday behaviors to make healthy choices easier and more culturally relevant.

Myelodysplastic syndrome is an extremely heterogeneous disease, and there is no definitive cure, so these investigators wanted a better understanding of patients’ priorities regarding their care, quality of life, and communication with the care team.

This new study examined postoperative survival among discharged patients following treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) via surgical resection using the National Cancer Database.

Patient-reported outcomes data regarding measures of health-related quality of life, also known as health state utilities, in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) are scarce, with current knowledge in this area concentrated in caregiver feedback.

Sidney (Beau) Raymond, MD, MMM, FACP, chief medical officer of Ochsner Health Network, believes that the health care system should focus on preventing illness and disease, rather than just treating them after they occur.

Amrish Selvam is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh whose research and career interests lay in ophthalmology and who volunteers with the UPMC Vision Institute’s mobile eye clinic, the eyeVan.