Mary Caffrey

With our current issue of Evidence-Based Oncology™ focusing on clinical pathways in cancer care, we look back at one of our most-read papers of 2016.

As today’s employers try to balance the need to provide healthcare for their workers while keeping an eye on cost, they are banding together to learn more about cancer care and how to gain value for the millions they are spending. Last fall during the Community Oncology Alliance Payer Exchange Summit, leaders from employer and purchasing groups shared experiences from their members in a roundtable discussion.

The 2007 paper examined the elevated risks for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes for patients who have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Writing for the panel, Judge David Sentelle said HHS Secretary Alex Azar ignored predictions that thousands of people would lose their healthcare coverage.

Competing trials are under way that may show that the benefits of SGLT2 inhibitors in heart failure are a class effect.

The article identifies issues such as poor socioeconomic background and lack of family and social support as factors in poor medication adherence, which today are recognized as social determinants of health

The plan represents the latest element of the Trump administration’s comprehensive approach to renal care, which seeks to keep patients from advancing to dialysis. For those who do, the plan promotes transplants and home dialysis options.

The most detailed look ever at data for rosiglitazone, the diabetes drug marketed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as Avandia, shows the one-time blockbuster significantly raises the overall risk of heart problems or cardiovascular death, calling attention to the need for more transparency in data collection.

This week's paper from our editors-in-chief presented the idea of tying a prescription drug's cost-sharing to its clinical value to the patient.

Results come at the decision point for practices: Will it be 1-sided or 2-sided risk?

CMS said it is expanding coverage of next generation sequencing (NGS) for use as a diagnostic for patients with germline breast and ovarian cancer, paving the way for Medicare beneficiaries to receive more personalized medicine. However, an advocate said the wording of CMS' decision could actually limit testing access for some women with breast or ovarian cancer.

The authors write that the drug's apparent cardioprotective effects in the angiotensin II stressed mice—the decreased fibrosis, reduced inflammation and oxidative stress—all merit further study.

Amid the disappointment that the Camden Coalition's "hot spotting" efforts did not reduce hospital readmissions, we note how a well-read 2007 paper in our archives showed that expenditures on disease management do not always produce a return on investment.

The abstract presented by Kwanza Price, MPH, of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, gathered data from August 1, 2017, and February 28, 2019, capturing the first 19 months of claims data after the biotech received FDA approval for its fixed-dose therapy for 2 types of poor-prognosis acute myeloid leukemia.

Reviews of apixaban in active cancer, Medicare costs after CAR T-cell therapy, and the need for financial assistance for novel therapies.

Results from clinical trials presented at the 2019 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida.

A pair of interviews on investigational therapies whose sponsors reported updates at the 61st American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition: UCART19 from Servier and a revamped anti-BCMA therapy ide-cel from bluebird bio.

Coverage from the 61st American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida, featured results for allogeneic or "off the shelf" CAR T-cell treatments and bispecific antibodies.

As part of our anniversary celebration, today we launch “Paper of the Week,” which will look back at some of the most influential research articles and commentary that have appeared in The American Journal of Managed Care® over the past 25 years, and why they are important today.

While the number of survivors who had cardiotoxic treatments increased, the doses they received decreased. Radiation exposure fell from 77% in the 1970s to 40% in the 1990s.

US Census data show the segment of the population over age 65 is growing faster than the group under age 65, highlighting the need for new healthcare delivery solutions.

The authors calculate that Medicaid expansion saved up to 8100 lives between 2014 and 2016, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) took full effect.

Priority review was based on phase 3 results from DAPA-HF, presented in Paris at the European Society of Cardiology and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Caris Life Sciences, a leader in somatic testing on cancer tumor cells, has joined forces with Ambry Genetics to offer its 67-gene test that evaluates a patient’s hereditary risk for cancer.

Unnecessary testing may expose young women to “preventable harms,” including anxiety, false-positives, and treatment that isn’t needed, according to findings in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Testicular cancer is the most common cancer to be diagnosed in men as younger men—those younger than age 40—and it can be particularly aggressive. Advances in therapy have improved survival rates, but if young men have chemotherapy after surgery, they may live with side effects for decades.

An executive with Jazz Pharmaceuticals said the ability to extend survival time in patients with secondary AML, and potentially offer them improved odds for transplant is an advance over traditional chemotherapy.

Advances in continuous glucose monitoring, reimbursement for genetic testing, and payment models in oncology care were popular with readers of the Evidence-Based series.

A team at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston led by original pioneers in immuno-oncology have published a paper in Nature Medicine that discusses an immune-suppressing enzyme that was strongly present in glioblastoma but not in 5 other tumor types the team studied.

The company presented updated phase 1 results for a revamped version of bb2121 that point to sustained responses for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.