In the Literature


New payment models that reward cost-effective, high-quality cancer care are needed. An experimental physician payment model that rewards physicians for focusing on best treatment practices and health outcomes rather than the widely used fee-for-service (FFS) model resulted in cost-savings, without affecting the quality of care among patients with 3 types of cancer.
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Clinical pathways have been suggested as a good method to implement guidelines into clinical practice and to reduce treatment variability. Although oncology clinical pathways have been studied previously, a new study looked at supportive care services and their effect on reducing emergency department visits and hospitalizations associated with chemotherapy toxicitie.
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Little is known about why patient care varies greatly for patients with similar illnesses, such as in patients with different types of cancer. Variation in the care of patients with cancer signals a lack of consensus about what constitutes optimal care; this suggests important gaps in the evidence base in which research may have an effect. In a new study, researchers sought to systemically assess interinstitutional variation in the management decisions for 4 common cancers using the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Outcomes Database.
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In a head-to-head study comparing ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and ofatumu­mab (Arzerra) for the second-line treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), ibrutinib significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) time, overall survival (OS), as well as response rate.
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Changes in the design and interpretation of phase 3 trials for advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have begun to emerge regarding statistical power, sample size, and the primary end points used. In a new study, researchers explored how the design and interpretation of these trials has changed over the past 3 decades.
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Panitumumab (Vectibix) proved noninferior to cetuximab (Erbitux) in overall survival (OS) in patients with chemotherapy-refractory wild-type KRAS exon 2 metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), according to the results of ASPECT (A Study of Panitumumab Efficacy and Safety Compared to Cetuximab).
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The identification of oncogenic drivers has helped transform the care of patients with adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer diagnosed in 130,000 patients in the United States and 1 million persons worldwide annually.
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Studies with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori) have shown significant improvement in clinical outcomes for the treatment of echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4 and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (EML4-ALK) fusion-positive non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but researchers recently questioned its cost-effectiveness.
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Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are the preferred treatment option for patients with advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have tested positive for EGFR mutations, because of better outcomes than conventional chemotherapy.
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