Interviews

MRD assessments are probably 1 of the most powerful predictors that we have to see how well a treatment has worked, said Elisabet Manasanch, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma and Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Following the International Myeloma Working Group criteria, we usually check for minimal residual disease when the patient has reached a complete remission or is very close to complete remission, said Elisabet Manasanch, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma and Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Part of the reason COA recommended a 'ramp up' period is we need time for the vendors to understand what they need to be incorporating in their software, said Michael Diaz, MD, president of Community Oncology Alliance.

"I am not convinced yet that the Oncology Care First Model truly takes into account necessary elements, including high-cost drugs," said Lucio Gordan, MD, president and managing physician at Florida Cancer Specialists.

Although it is true that there are people who still don't use minimal residual disease (MRD) testing, I think that its use is going to pick up based on results of emerging clinical studies, said Elisabet Manasanch, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma and Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

"There is this mentality that hospice means the patient is going to die very soon, and that's really not true," said Maen Hussein, MD, physician director of finance at Florida Cancer Specialists.

Right now, it's not really used for decision treatment in most centers, but there are a lot of studies that have started this year or starting next year that have MRD as an endpoint so we will see, said Elisabet Manasanch, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma and Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Sharing records and encouraging conversation will promote better collaboration between primary care and cancer care, said Jeffrey Lowenkron, MD, chief medical officer of The Villages Health.

"We want to make sure practices have time to learn, understand, adapt, and modify, to a new Oncology Care Model," said Michael Diaz, MD, president of Community Oncology Alliance.

Several challenges arise when using real-world data derived from claims to study the impacts of CAR T-cell therapy on Medicare patients, said Karl Kilgore, PhD, senior research analyst at Avalere Health.