Oncology

As new innovations in cancer care reach the market, some people seem ready to move on from chemotherapy, but the treatment will still have a role to play in treating cancer for years, if not decades, to come.

The expanding arsenal of targeted and immuno-oncology drugs has unalterably changed the landscape of systemic cancer treatment, but chemotherapy will remain critical for years if not decades to come.

A pair of study abstracts presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, supported the efficacy of entrectinib among 2 different groups of patients, including patients with a rare form of lung cancer and pediatric and adolescent patients with solid tumors.

The Oncology Care Model (OCM) is pushing cancer centers and cancer programs to make the changes they knew were needed to improve care delivery and patient experiences, said David Ortiz, OCM program director at Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care.

There has been much speculation about the end of chemotherapy in cancer treatment, but it’s not clear how accurate that is, said Bruce Feinberg, DO, vice president and chief medical officer of Cardinal Health Specialty Solutions.

Though chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has been largely touted as one of the most important advances in cancer care in recent years, the therapy comes with the risk of severe toxicities as well as increased financial burden due to the high cost of the drugs.

Outlining a set of issues that need to be addressed under the Oncology Care Model (OCM), the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) is urging the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation to delay the October 2019 deadline for practices to transition to 2-sided risk under the model.

“How do you currently collaborate with your primary care colleagues in caring for patients with cancer?” This was how Larissa Nekhlyudov, MD, MPH, opened a session titled “Bringing the Primary Care Physician Back Into Cancer Care,” during the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Annual Meeting, held in Chicago, Illinois from May 31-June 4, 2019.

This is part 3 of a 3-part vaccine series covering the potential of vaccines for infectious diseases, the impact of the antivaccination movement, and the promise of vaccines for cancer treatment. Read part 1 and part 2.

In the first of a series of interviews with key opinion leaders (KOLs), Amy Ellis, director of quality and value-based care at Northwest Medical Specialties, discusses practice transformation with Jess Quiring, a patient navigator at New Mexico Cancer Center.

The median lag time from first-in-human to first-in-child trials of oncology drugs that were ultimately approved by FDA is 6.5 years.

The long time between when a performance period ends and when the report comes out in the Oncology Care Model (OCM) can make it difficult to measure the impact specific changes are making, said David Ortiz, OCM program director at Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care.