Clinical

Initiated by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Choosing Wisely® is a campaign that has seen participation by a number of different national medical organizations to promote conversations between clinicians and patients to ensure adequate, evidence-based care.

What we're reading, January 23, 2017: it is currently unclear what the impact President Donald Trump's executive order will have on the Affordable Care Act; New York requires that insurers cover birth control and abortions; and hospitals reexamine guidelines for opioid prescribing.

Outgoing FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, has announced that Richard Pazdur, MD, who was serving as the interim director, will now be heading the Oncology Center of Excellence.

At the 2016 annual meeting, the American Society of Hematology introduced the “Choosing Wisely Champions” to recognize the efforts of practitioners who are working to eliminate costly and potentially harmful overuse of tests and procedures.

What we're reading, January 20, 2017: Minnesota will help residents with steep insurance premium hikes; the director of the National Institutes of Health appointed by President Barack Obama will stay on under the new administration; Anthem will end pre-authorization for opioid use disorder treatments.

A joint session hosted by the American Society of Hematology and the European Hematology Association provided an update on the clinical progress with pluripotent stem cells.

A collaborative study has concluded that genomic assays can be successfully used to identify diagnostic, prognostic, and treatment-relevant alterations and can help guide precision treatment decisions for pediatric brain tumors.

The FDA is giving serious consideration to the economics of the drug or device development process, and to that effect, has released a draft guidance for manufacturers on how and what to communicate with payers and formulary committees.

The improved expansion of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells indicates a deeper clinical response.

A new report released by the American Cancer Society indicates that while the cancer-related death rate was higher among blacks than in whites in 2014, the racial gap could reduce as minority patients increasingly gain access to insurance and subsequent healthcare.

The abortion rate in the United States hit a historic low in 2014 with 2 likely contributing factors: improved access to contraceptives and increased restrictions to abortion services.

Despite the complexities associated with treating older patients diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), patients in the RESONATE-2 trial continue to present a favorable response to single-agent ibrutinib at a follow-up of 29 months.

The results showed that obinutuzumab-based immunochemotherapy and maintenance improved progression-free survival in treatment-naïve patients with follicular lymphoma.

A study in a mouse model found that mice receiving chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T immunotherapy plus ibrutinib demonstrated longer overall survival and reduced cytokine production than the mice not treated with ibrutinib.

A novel, simplified cost-value analysis tool was created to better differentiate the value of anticancer agents and further characterize the expected survival benefit of all patients.

The trial, evaluating the programmed death ligand-1 inhibitor durvalumab, alone or in combination with tremelimumab, versus platinum-based chemotherapy, has refined its endpoints to include overall survival (OS) along with progression-free survival.

Among the 9 new orphan drugs approved by the FDA in 2016 were 3 treatments for rare diseases that, so far, had no approved treatments: Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy, and severe hepatic veno-occlusive disease.

According to a new study, in addition to tumor type, stage, and the presence of comorbidities, patients receiving cisplatin-based treatments might be at an increased risk of venous thromboembolism.

At the 58th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition, Jan Joseph Melenhorst, PhD, presented results of a study evaluating biomarkers of response to anti-CD19 CAR T-cell treatment in patients diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Phase 3 results from the LyMa trial have shown that rituximab, after autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT), prolongs event-free survival, progression-free survival, and overall survival (OS) in previously untreated young patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) following ASCT.

Early phase 1 results show that including the cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitor palbociclib in the treatment plan of patients with mantle cell lymphoma can help overcome resistance to ibrutinib.

In high-risk patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells of defined composition can be administered with an acceptable early toxicity.

An experiment by Park Nicollet Health Services to document personalized pain management goals for patients in oncology clinics lowered documented pain, while physician education on cost information helped reduce treatment costs.

Since patients with COPD often have other comorbidities, researchers sought to understand patient adherence to maintenance COPD medications and adherence to treat other chronic conditions.

A new initiative has been launched at the University of North Carolina to create and share tools to fight rare diseases.