Articles

The treatment of patients with brain metastases involves issues of controlling recurrence, side effects, and costs.

The treatment of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) may benefit from immunotherapy with anti–PD-1 agents, based on results of a recent study using pembrolizumab (Keytruda).

Copenhagen, Denmark—Biosimilar filgrastim (Nivestim; Hospira), which was approved earlier this year by the European Commission but not yet by the FDA, showed effectiveness for the treatment of neutropenia and febrile neutropenia (FN) in patients undergoing cytotoxic chemotherapy for solid tumors and hematologic malignancies, according to a study presented at the 2015 Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology meeting.

Vienna, Austria—Immunotherapy is poised to become a game changer for patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recently issued its framework to assess the value of cancer treatment options in response to the major challenge of escalating healthcare costs in the United States.

The Triple Aim of better patient care, lower spending by payers, and the maintenance of financially viable practices and hospitals is achievable with condition-based payment models in oncology, said Harold D. Miller, MS, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, at the Fifth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-­Based Cancer Care.

Much attention is given to how bad news affects patients with cancer. Yet, little is known about the experience of physicians and what is required by them to deliver this news.

As patients, providers, payers, and policymakers continue to seek ways to assess the value of cancer therapies by balancing clinical benefits and treatment costs, a number of tools have been released to define the value of medicines.

Boston, MA—Fertility preservation by controlled ovarian hyperstimulation with concurrent letrozole (Femara) is safe in women with breast cancer, according to a single-center, prospective study on the long-term safety of fertility preservation by the use of ovarian stimulation and concurrent aromatase inhibitors in women with breast cancer, presented at the 2015 Best of ASCO meeting in Boston. Controlled ovarian hyperstimulation had no impact on relapse-free survival and enabled live births in a substantial proportion of women who later chose to retrieve their frozen embryos or oocytes.