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Karmanos Cancer Institute, in Detroit, Michigan, established a specialty pharmacy to help alleviate the financial burden many patients face when paying for their oral novel therapeutics.

While there are more novel therapies available to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), there are still unanswered questions about how to use these therapies in sequences, said Lindsey Roeker, MD, clinical fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Blue Cross Blue Shield is dedicated to maintaining local relationships to ensure they can provide the best care continuum to patients, said Jennifer Atkins, MBA, vice president of Network Solutions at Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Results from Avalere Health show that once Medicare patients get through the experience and expense of CAR T-cell therapy, they do well and costs drop significantly.

Children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who come from neighborhoods with lower income have poorer outcomes and may have access to care issues, said Lena Winestone, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

To avoid the toxicities associated with use of chemotherapy, there has been progress in developing and utilizing chemotherapy-free therapies to treat mantle cell lymphoma, said Michael Wang, MD, professor in the Department of Lymphoma and Myeloma at MD Anderson.

Successors to the first generation of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell treatments will attack multiple targets and address the complexity of the manufacturing process by bringing uniformity to the creation of therapies, presenters said at the 61st American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando, Florida.

Identifying elevated LDL-C levels in patients and treating them with evolocumab can potentially mitigate and reduce the rate of ischemic events, said Darryl Sleep, MD, senior vice president, global medical and chief medical officer at Amgen.

The GUARD-AF trial promotes heightened knowledge of stroke risk among patients with atrial fibrillation by analyzing, evaluating, and distributing important data back to practitioners, which can possibly reduce the incidence of stroke, said Roland Chen, MD, MS, vice president and head of clinical development for innovative medicines at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The HDL PDS-2 system showed in a relatively short time its ability to affect the progression of HoFH, with a reduction in the burden of plaque overall highlighting its exciting potential, said Brian Ghoshhajra, MD, MBA, diagnostic radiologist and service chief of cardiovascular imaging in the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Nephrologists treating children with kidney disease or metabolic syndrome have different challenges and opportunities than when treating adults, according to Tammy Brady, MD, PhD, medical director of the Pediatric Hypertension Program and associate professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.

We've had the opportunity to evaluate the CD34+ cell in the past 20 years, and finally we have a tool that represents a potential breakthrough for patients with CMD, said Douglas Losordo, MD, FACC, FAHA, chief medical officer at Caladrius Biosciences.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to change the way physicians have monitored for conditions such as atrial fibrillation in the past 5 decades, said Brandon Fornwalt, MD, PhD, director of the Cardiac Imaging Technology Laboratory at Geisinger.

Prescriptive analytics, not just predictive analytics, will make a difference in patient outcomes, said John Frownfelter, MD, FACP, chief medical officer of Jvion.

The industry does not do a very good job of letting providers know there are ways to cover risk or protect against it. Better educating physicians on this would help improve uptake of value-based care models, said Mike Fazio, senior vice president of client services, Archway Health.

By improving detection of atrial fibrillation, more affected individuals can provide researchers with valuable information and a potential signal to treat, said Brent A. Williams, PhD, research investigator focusing on the optimal incorporation of cardiac imaging technologies in clinical practice for Geisinger.

A RAND study comparing hospital prices across states provided insights into the drivers of high healthcare spending in Michigan, explained Bret Jackson, president of the Economic Alliance for Michigan.

Detecting more cases of atrial fibrillation, and at an earlier rate, is key to preventing adverse patient outcomes, said Stephen Voyce, MD, cardiologist and chief of cardiology at Geisinger Community Medical Center for the Geisinger Heart Institute and director of clinical cardiology research.

GRAIL has generated enormous innovations in oncology care over the past 2 decades and will continue this trend through exploring 1 of oncology’s biggest opportunities, early detection of cancer, said Joshua Ofman, MD, chief of Corporate Strategy and External Affairs at GRAIL Inc.

Healthcare needs to learn to adapt faster to changes, said John Frownfelter, MD, FACP, chief medical officer of Jvion.

Based off the rich data available on mavacamten efficacy within subsets of patients with non-obstructive HCM, researchers have designed the next phase of study on this select group, said Stephen Heitner, MD, director of Clinical Trials and director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center at the Oregon Health and Science University.

For patients with obstructive HCM in the PIONEER-OLE study, mavacamten was shown to improve patients' symptoms, reduce LVOT obstruction, and essentially improve myocardial efficiency, said Stephen Heitner, MD, director of Clinical Trials and director of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center at the Oregon Health and Science University.

With the expansive growth of the electronic health record in the past decade, the extraction of meaningful use metrics is vital in the transition to value-based care, said Vinay Kini, MD, MS, cardiologist at the UCHealth Heart and Vascular Center–Anschutz Medical Campus.

Mavacamten is a first-in-class small-molecule therapy that reduces the contractility of cardiac muscles by binding with myosin, a protein involved in muscle contraction that is often affected by a gene mutation in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Data from EVAPORATE, presented at the 2019 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, may be the start of answering a question that has baffled the research community: just how does icosapent ethyl, sold as Vascepa, prevent heart attacks in patients with high triglycerides?

The 2013 ACC/AHA cholesterol guidelines had no significant change in lipid testing behavior, which can be potentially attributed to the varying cholesterol treatment guidelines implemented by organizations, said Sara Levintow, PhD candidate, Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

By identifying patients at very high risk for atrial fibrillation, preventive measures and screening strategies can be implemented for heightened patient care, said John Pfeifer, MD, MPH, cardiologist at Geisinger Medical Center.

Sunday’s poster session at the 2019 American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, included research that addressed disparities in clinical outcomes, healthcare delivery, and access to payer coverage.

Two additional analyses have come from DAPA-HF, a trial released in September that found the sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor works equally well in patients with and without diabetes in reducing cardiovascular death and heart failure (HF) events in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction.

Results from ISCHEMIA, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, are likely to change practice guidelines, according to commenters who took part in Saturday’s packed presentation at the 2019 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.