Clinical Pathways

WIth different societies and organizations releasing contrary guidelines around breast cancer screening, experience with past patients or friends and family members could influence physicians' decisions around when to start screening mammography.

The FDA has approved Foundation Medicine's FoundationOne CDx, the first-of-a-kind comprehensive companion diagnostic test for solid tumors. The test looks for hundreds of cancer genes, providing healthcare professionals with a more complete picture of what's causing tumor growth and guidance for treatment decisions.

A newly published retrospective study in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery found that lobectomy improved survival in patients with early-stage lung cancer compared with SBRT.

A new tool developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the ECRI Institute will assess the extent to which a guideline adheres to the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) standards for trustworthy evidence-based clinical guidelines.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapy should be the first line of treatment for certain prostate cancers and lymphomas with a major genetic weakness, according to researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Documenting when a patient falls outside of a recommended pathway has the dual benefits of improving the algorithm and helping a provider get reimbursed faster, explained Torrie K. Fields, MPH, senior program manager of Palliative Care Program Design & Implementation for Blue Shield of California.

High chemotherapy costs are only one reason for the rising cost of cancer care. End-of-life care and hospitalizations are within an oncologist's control and must be better managed given new reimbursement structures.

Reimbursement policy has been a driver of change in the way hospitals handle heart failure patients.

Roche had 2 drugs approved by the FDA—one that is the first approved treatment for a rare blood disease and the other is approved as a first-line treatment for anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive metastatic non–small cell lung cancer.

With the risk of upgrade of flat epithelial atypia to malignancy is low, surveillance rather than surgery is a reasonable option for patients, according to a study.

The FDA has granted Priority Review designation for Eli Lilly and Company’s New Drug Application (NDA) for Verzenio (abemaciclib), a cyclindependent kinase 4 and 6 inhibitor for metastatic breast cancer. The decision was based on the MONARCH 3 study, which examined abemaciclib as an initial endocrine-based therapy.

Results of the 70-gene signature assay strongly influence physician's treatment recomendations for patients with early breast cancer who were classified as intermediate risk by the 21-gene assay.

After a study reported that physicians who authored dermatology clinical guidelines didn't always fully disclose financial conflicts of interest, the American Academy of Dermatology urged the public to view the findings with caution.

October is breast cancer awareness month, and as September ended, a new treatment received the FDA’s approval for advanced breast cancer and another was granted priority review for the adjuvant treatment of early breast cancer.