Oncology

A collaboration between the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the fitness tracking company Fitbit will investigate whether weight loss in women diagnosed with breast cancer can stave off recurrence.

Panelists explain the need and the challenges with including principles of palliative care in oncology clinical pathways.

Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, shares findings from their recently published study in The American Journal of Managed Care, which showed that patients do not know they are being treated on predetermined pathways.

Neither Blase Polite, MD, MPP, not Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, believe that clinical pathways restrict patient access to care.

According to Blase Polite, MD, MPP, pathways are well-designed to allow personalized medicine.

According to Blase Polite, MD, MPP, it is much harder for a cancer center to adapt care pathways than it is for a smaller clinic.

Expanding the definition of "value" beyond cost, Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, emphasized that clinical pathways need more dynamic quality metrics that provide more than just a snapshot of a patient's performance.

Panelists discussed whether there is any flexibility woven into the process of developing a clinical pathway, especially if a patient does not respond to a particular therapy or if a clinician wants to include a new therapy that may be better fit.

While providers would be relieved of their administrative burden, standardizing care pathways across health plans may not be an easy task, Blase Polite, MD, MPP, explains.

Have clinical pathways in oncology developed enough for providers and patients to use them as a shared decision-making tool? Panelists provide insight.

Experts discuss the need for guidelines and adequate rigor when developing a care pathway in oncology.

What do pathway developers consider as they formulate cancer clinical pathways? Panelists explain.

Panel members provide their own perspective on what clinical pathways encompass.

An exhaustive analysis of over a 100,000 individuals has confirmed the absence of unbiased association between statin use and a person’s risk of colorectal cancer; however, an inverse relation of risk and cholesterol levels was identified.

The American Journal of Managed Care convened an expert panel to discuss the development and utility of clinical pathways in oncology care.

Patients diagnosed with advanced renal cell carcinoma, who have received prior treatment with anti-angiogenic agents, now have the option of being treated with the small molecule inhibitor cabozantinib.

This week, the top stories in managed care included the news that UnitedHealth will be exiting most Obamacare exchanges in 2017, and coverage from both the annual meeting of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy and the Community Oncology Conference.

Cost, biosimilars, and technology dominated the conversations when managed care pharmacists, health plan administrators, physicians, and more gathered for the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting in San Francisco, April 19-22, 2016.

Flatiron Health has announced the development of a cloud-based electronic health record and an analytics tool to support reporting requirements for those clinics that will be selected to participate in the Oncology Care Model.

According to Avalere Health, physicians who prescribe lower cost drugs would be reimbursed at a higher rate than those who use more expensive drugs, under the proposed Medicare Part B demo model.

What we're reading, April 21, 2016: Congress keeps things moving on the fight against the opioid epidemic; new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds Medicaid expansion has a broader societal impact; and Novartis faces stiff competition from generic version of Gleevec.

AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting 2016 kicked off by delving into the near-term specialty pharmaceutical pipeline with Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, senior clinical consultant of emerging therapies at Express Scripts.

The growth of clinical pathways in cancer care brings opportunities to improve quality and control cost, but there are frustrations, too. Physicians want to retain some freedom and are pushing back against the administrative jungle from multiple payers, according to a special issue of Evidence-Based Oncology, a publication of The American Journal of Managed Care.

An international study evaluating nivolumab in head and neck cancer has found that patients treated with the checkpoint inhibitor were twice as likely to be alive at 1 year after initiating treatment, compared with patients who were given standard chemotherapy.