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Research presented at the American Diabetes Association's 80th Scientific Sessions offers new insights into the future of glycemic control, diabetes self-management, and remote care.

Leaders from several different accountable care organizations (ACOs) describe their experience of creating programs to care for Medicare beneficiaries using the skilled nursing facility (SNF) waiver process.

Selected abstracts from the American Diabetes Association's 80th Scientific Sessions discuss when to add injectable therapy, how patients who switched to semaglutide lost more weight and gained glycemic control, and offered results from an early-phase study on a monoclonal antibody that may preserve B-cell function.

During a joint symposium on Saturday, held as part of the 80th American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions and hosted by JDRF President and CEO Aaron Kowalski, PhD, experts debated the merits and pitfalls of how to measure glycemic control and overall health among persons with diabetes. Which is better, they asked: the traditional measure of glycated hemoglobin or the newer measure, time-in-range?

Yale's Silvio Inzucchi, MD, who has been involved in groundbreaking trials with SGLT2 inhibitors for the past decade, shared data that show patients who did not have type 2 diabetes (T2D) when they started the DAPA-HF trial were 32% less likely to develop the disease if they took dapagliflozin (Farxiga) instead of placebo.

The announcement of a $35 per month out-of-pocket cap for insulin for some individuals with Medicare is a real victory for the American Diabetes Association and for people with diabetes, said Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, chief medical and scientific officer of the American Diabetes Association.

American women die in childbirth at a higher rate than in any other developed country, while non-Hispanic Black women are more than 3 times more likely to have a maternal death than white women in the United States, according to a review presented at the American Diabetes Association’s 80th Scientific Sessions.

Obesity contributes to development of youth-onset type 2 diabetes (T2D) and can lead to detrimental health outcomes in adulthood. Researchers explored this relationship and offered insights on addressing the problem during a session at the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) 80th Scientific sessions, held virtually due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The aim of this feasibility study was to determine whether digital health use via smartphones, a platform that adolescents are more engaged with than other age groups, could aid in teaching youth more about cardiovascular risks, and promote uptake of this knowledge so individuals increase heart healthy behaviors, said Tara Kaushal, MD, physician and clinical researcher at Joslin Diabetes Center.

When it comes to diabetes, lead study author Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, said clinicians and payers should weigh the considerable costs of what happens when a patient suffers a heart attack or stroke when deciding on a treatment regimen.

In a debate at the American Diabetes Association 80th Scientific Sessions, Darren K. McGuire, MD, MHSc, professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology, Dallas Heart Ball Chair for Research on Heart Disease in Women, Distinguished Teaching Professor, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, will discuss whether sodium-glucose transport protein 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists are ready to be used for primary cardiovascular prevention.

One advantage of conducting an online scientific conference is that more individuals will gain access to information presented at the meeting, said Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD, the newly appointed chief medical and scientific officer of the American Diabetes Association.

At the virtual spring conference of the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS), policy officials highlighted the changes since the start of the year due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

A multidisciplinary team of oncologists, health care providers, caregivers, and the patients themselves benefits everyone, and telehealth-based interventions can help to foster these relationships, but we should understand when patients do not want to involve their families in their care, noted Sara L. Douglas, PhD, RN, the Gertrude Perkins Oliva Professor in Oncology Nursing and associate dean for research at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Blocking TIGIT, a T-cell immunoreceptor, benefits patients with non–small lung cancer in that it can restore their immune system’s antitumor response, leading to a greater objective response and progression-free survival, noted Melissa L. Johnson, MD, associate director for Lung Cancer Research at Sarah Cannon Research Institute and partner in Tennessee Oncology, discussing the results of the CITYSCAPE trial.

Coronavirus disease 2019 disparities persist in our most vulnerable communities because of the financial necessity to continue working, as well as the lack of employment opportunities that enable their residents to work remotely. They are more likely to be considered essential workers, and that increases their exposure to the virus, explained Blythe Adamson, PhD, MPH, principal quantitative scientist at Flatiron Health.

Getting the full picture of genetic testing results requires that patients have access to genetic counselors who can evaluate individual risk.

A picture is emerging picture of what patients with cancer face under coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): They are more likely to be older or have underlying health problems, which are known to make the virus more deadly. But the treatments that can stop cancer could also put that at risk.

Compared with ibrutinib, zanubrutinib appears to have more of a benefit for patients with regards to less atrial fibrillation, hypertension, and other cardiac effects, explained Constantine S. Tam, MBBS, MD, clinical hematologist, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Telemedicine has grown from about 10% of all patient visits, before the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, to almost 90% at present, and it isn’t going away anytime soon, noted Sara L. Douglas, PhD, RN, the Gertrude Perkins Oliva Professor in Oncology Nursing and associate dean for research at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

"Our patients are the reasons we do what we do. They are the reason we do the work," said outgoing ASCO President Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FASCO, FACP, during his opening address on the second day of this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology conference.

Zanubrutinib, a second-generation BTK inhibitor, is approved by FDA to treat mantle cell lymphoma.

An experimental glioblastoma therapy with promising 12-month results may also have potential with other treatment-resistant cancers, according to Jeffrey Skolnick, MD, vice president, clinical development, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. Results are being presented during the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2020 annual meeting.

Inadequate access to health care can truly be a life or death matter, so health care policy designed to improve access to care, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is, can have a fundamental effect on making progress against cancer-related mortality and improving the quality of the care delivered, noted Fumiko Chino, MD, assistant attending radiation oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

The results have important implications for managed care. Many patients in the study who today would receive surgery and chemotherapy would see a recurrence. In addition, the ability to treat these patients more effectively at earlier stages raises new questions about the need to conduct more lung cancer screening.

The lead author said the findings were a step forward for biomarker studies and would change clinical practice.

Cost savings are likely to occur should payers switch from originator bevacizumab or rituximab to their respective biosimilars, according to research from 2 studies presented at the Virtual 2020 International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) meeting.

The presentation at Virtual ISPOR 2020 found that 7% of a group of Medicare beneficiaries with type 2 diabetes was experiencing food insecurity, a rate the lead author found "alarming."

More than one-quarter of elderly women with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer did not receive care in accordance with National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) treatment guidelines, and that was linked to higher mortality as well as higher Medicare costs.

A new report shows just how much disease modifying therapies (DMTs) have changed the economic landscape of treating multiple sclerosis.