Articles

Early intervention utilizing a team approach is important to successful palliative care, agreed a multidisciplinary panel convened at the 2016 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) annual conference.

“Value” in healthcare has been defined as outcomes relative to cost. Determining the value of a healthcare benefit remains difficult and complex for many stakeholders. With the increasing cost of cancer therapies, value has become an important topic of conversation for patients, healthcare providers, self-funded plan sponsors (employers), and payers.

Daratumumab in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone achieved a 63% reduction in progression-free survival (PFS) compared with lenalidomide and dexamethasone alone in patients with multiple myeloma who had received at least 1 previous line of therapy, according to study results presented at the 2016 European Hematology Association Annual Congress meeting.

A new payment and delivery model introduced by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation aims to align financial incentives to improve oncology care and outcomes. Expected to begin in July 2016, the program will target patients from the start of their chemotherapy through 6 months of care.

The National Academy of Medicine recommends a shared decision-making approach when discussing medical treatments; however, an overview of evidence presented by Terrance Lynn Albrecht, PhD, Associate Center Director, Population Sciences, Karmanos Cancer Institute, and Chief of Oncology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, at the 2016 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting suggests that clinicians are not very effective in following this recommendation.

With the exception of resistance mutations, somatic alterations in circulating tumor (ct) DNA (ie, a liquid biopsy) are consistent with alterations found in tissue biopsies of patients with advanced solid tumors, said Philip C. Mack, PhD, Director of Molecular Pharmacology, University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, Sacramento, at the 2016 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting.

Susan Gubar, an ovarian cancer survivor whose life has been extended by a clinical trial, was shocked to read a recent article published online by Charles Piller on the lack of reporting of clinical trial results.

An international collaborative pilot study found large differences by country in retail prices for 23 cancer drugs, with the highest retail prices in the United States and the lowest in India and South Africa. Higher prices, however, did not mean that the drugs were less affordable, according to lead investigator Daniel Goldstein, MD, Rabin Medical Center, Petach Tikvah, Israel, who presented the results at the 2016 ASCO annual meeting.