Oncology

This week, the top managed care stories included a new bill in Congress to tackle the opioid epidemic; an analysis that warns against including drug costs in bundled payment models; the FDA commissioner shares ideas to improve innovation and access to next-generation sequencing.

Having numerous therapies to treat prostate cancer can actually be a bad thing—it makes it difficult to design clinical trials for new therapies coming into the space, explained Joe O'Sullivan, MD, FRCR, clinical professor, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast.

A group of Democrats unveil a bill to set up a new public health insurance option; a look at the health challenges that persist in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria; married people are more likely to get diagnosed early and be treated in a timely fashion for melanoma.

A novel drug that targets MDMX and MDM2, which inhibit a protein that suppresses tumors when they are overexpressed, has tripled the median survival rate in an animal model of human acute myeloid leukemia, according to new research.

Early feeding, euvalemia, and multimodal pain management can be used to to accelerate surgical recovery and improve outcomes in gynecologic oncology, explained Sean C. Dowdy, MD, chair, division of gynecologic surgery, department of obstetrics and gynecology, Mayo Clinic.

Coverage from the Association of Community Cancer Centers’ 44th Annual Meeting & Cancer Center Business Summit, March 14-16, 2018, in Washington, DC.

Thomas LeBlanc, MD, of the Duke Cancer Institute, addresses the importance of adding a palliative care specialist to the cancer care team.

The increased risk of cancer in patients with HIV has been well defined, and some studies have suggested that patients with HIV have not only a higher risk of lung cancer, but also an increased risk of mortality from their cancer than patients without HIV.

An analysis of a hypothetical bundled payment that included drug costs would unfairly penalize practices based on patient mix and could destabilize the cancer care delivery environment, according to research published in the Journal of Oncology Practice.

Coverage from the American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, held February 8-10, 2018, in San Francisco, California

The high cost of new, innovative cancer treatments coming to market makes these therapies inaccessible to a lot of patients, said Michele McCourt, senior director of the CancerCare Co-Payment Assistance Foundation.

This study compares the well-being of long-term cancer survivors with that of US residents of similar age and demographic characteristics, patients recently diagnosed with cancer, and individuals with chronic illness.

The identification of 40 genes involved with the development of multiple myeloma could lead to the development of more personalized treatments.

William Cliby, MD, consultant, division of gynecologic surgery, department of obstetrics & gynecology, Mayo Clinic, discusses patient factors that predispose them to adverse complications during surgery for ovarian cancer and using those predictors to improve care.

One possible way to reduce overall cost, improve patient experience, and improve outcomes in cancer care is to shift the focus of healthcare delivery away from volume and toward value. Patient-centered cancer care holds the promise of addressing these issues.

Oncology nurse navigators provide the “constant” in what seem to be undulating waves of changes to workflows, the adoption of new technology, the near-weekly onslaught of new drugs, and the need to ensure every nuance of documentation is entered in discrete fields in electronic health records so the practice meets reporting requirements.

It is important to establish broadly agreed-on and accepted frameworks for thinking about the value of high-cost cancer therapies, so that we as a society can weigh the choices in front of us.

Risk has very different meanings depending on whether one views it from a clinical or financial perspective.

Thomas Graf, MD, chief medical officer and vice president, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, discusses evolving care bundle payments to better accommodate cancer patients.

If we don't close the gap in gender differences in HPV vaccination, we will likely see an increase in HPV-related cancers, explained Anna Beavis, MD, MPH, a gynecologic oncologist fellow at Johns Hopkins University.

How are large employers adapting to, and benefiting from, the value-based care practices that are a payer demand and a provider imperative? This was the focus of a panel moderated by Bo Gamble, director of Strategic Practice Initiatives, Community Oncology Alliance (COA), during the 2018 Community Oncology Conference hosted by COA, April 12-13 in National Harbor, Maryland.

While increased risk of neurocognitive issues, such as long-term problems with attention, is common in survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the risk may actually begin before treatment, according to a study published in JAMA Oncology.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

Providing financial navigators in cancer centers and hospitals can have demonstrable benefits for both patients and hospitals, explained Todd Yezefski, MD, senior fellow in the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Washington.

Researchers have identified genetic subtypes of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma that revise the molecular classification of the disease and could provide insight into why some patients respond to treatment and others don’t.