Oncology

Nat Turner, co-founder and CEO of Flatiron Health, says that clinical research accessibility is one of the biggest barriers in oncology care that Flatiron Health is working to remove.

The annual price of monoclonal antibody therapies used in oncology and hematology is about $100,000 higher than those used in other disease states.

First-degree family history was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among women aged 65 and older, and risk associated with family history was not significantly modified by breast density, according to a study in JAMA Oncology.

FDA has approved apalutamide, the first treatment for nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, based on results from a phase 3 study that showed the drug reduced the risk of metastasis or death by 72% and improved median metastasis-free survival by more than 2 years.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) have developed new guidelines on managing immune checkpoint inhibitor-related toxicities.

There is a greater overall survival benefit for patients with recurrent urothelial cancer being treated with pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy, according to long-term results of the KEYNOTE-045 trial.

Last week, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) published its review of the leading oncology pathway vendors in the United States in the Journal of Oncology Practice. The report found that overall, the prominent commercial pathway programs in the United States are aligned with ASCO’s evaluation criteria.

Medicaid expansion in Kentucky led to an increase of screening mammograms, screening coverage, and breast-conserving surgery for women aged 20 to 64 with breast cancer, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. However, the study also showed that time from diagnosis to operation increased post expansion and time from operation to chemotherapy remained unchanged.

We want to know all sides of the 2-risk model, like with any challenge or strategy, said Roger Brito, DO, national director for oncology, Aetna.

In prostate cancer, we're using combinations by looking to see how 1 drug may trigger an immune infiltrate or proteins that allow the tumor to resist the monotherapy, said Sumit Subudhi, MD, PhD, genitourinary medical oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

The addition of docetaxel to first-line long-term hormone therapy in patients with prostate cancer is associated with improved quality of life (QoL) benefits and cost effectiveness, according to study results presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

There was a reduced rate of uninsured patients at the time of diagnosis and a shift to earlier stage at time of diagnosis for patients with testicular cancer in states that adopted Medicaid expansion in 2014, according to findings presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Daily image-guided radiotherapy, when compared to weekly control, decreases the risk of recurrence and rectal toxicity, but is associated with an increased risk of second cancer, according to study results presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Robotic procedures have really exploded in prostate cancer, said Christopher Kane, MD, professor of urology, University of California, San Diego. Robotic radical prostatectomy is now the most common way a radical prostatectomy is done in the United States.

Black patients with prostate cancer are underrepresented in clinical trials due to eligibility requirements that exclude patients with benign ethnic neutropenia, according to a new study published in JAMA Oncology.

During a session at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, Peter Black, MD, professor, department of urologic sciences, University of British Columbia, discussed using molecular subtypes, the Coxen model, and gene mutations to select patients and therapies for neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

During a session at the 2018 Genitourinay Cancers Symposium, Abhishek Solanki, MD, MS, assistant professor, radiation oncology, Loyola University of Chicago discussed the role of immunotherapy in patients undergoing radiation therapy for bladder cancer.

With new guidelines on how to treat and manage muscle-invasive bladder cancer, Jeffrey Holzbeierlein, MD, FACS, professor of urology, director of urologic oncology, interim chair of the department of urology, University of Kansas Health System, provided insight into how the guidelines have changed the management of the disease at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

This week, the top managed care stories included Indiana being approved as the second state to implement work requirements in Medicaid; research found 5-year survival rates for cancer are increasing; coverage from the American Society of Clinical Oncology's 2018 Genitourinary Symposium.

During a session at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, 2 doctors debate whether there is existing evidence for local treatment for patients newly diagnosed with metastatic disease.

For the first time, molecular therapies, such as radium-223, provide a survival-prolonging agent for men with advanced prostate cancer affecting the bone, explained Joe O'Sullivan, MD, FRCR, clinical professor, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast.

Osteomimicry may contribute to the uptake of radium-223 within bone metastases and may subsequently enhance the therapeutic benefit of radium-223, according to an abstract presented by Andrew Armstrong, MD, associate professor of medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Apalutamide significantly improved median metastasis-free survival by 2 years in men with nonmetastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC), according to study results presented by Eric Jay Small, MD, MD, FASCO, chief of the division of hematology and oncology in the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), deputy director of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and professor in residence in the Department of Medicine and Department of Urology, at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

A long-term follow-up analyzing the toxic effects and results from a phase 1 clinical trial of adult patients with relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who were treated with CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells found patients with low disease burden had a longer medial overall survival and a lower incidence of toxicity.