Articles

Boston, MA—Researchers have defined an 81-feature molecular signature to identify neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), an aggressive and rapidly progressing entity that is increasingly being recognized in patients with advanced disease and signals poor overall survival. The signature, derived from genomic, transcription, and methylation analysis, relies heavily on epigenetic alterations.

I believe that the dialogue and thoughts being shared and expressed by all cancer care stakeholders is exactly what we need today. Frankly, the conversation has been underground far too long, but the headlines today have been focused solely on the drug cost. Anyone thinking that cancer care costs are going to go down, simply doesn’t understand healthcare economics, because the cost to society will continue to go up over time, with true innovation and value delivered.

TMed will improve the selection of treatments by adding back and analyzing all the relevant data about the variability of response and the multiplicity of causes…from thousands, if not millions, of patients.

Clinicians will soon have more targeted therapies at their disposal, including drugs with novel mechanisms of action.

Enzalutamide (Xtandi) outperformed bicalutamide (Casodex) in separate phase 2 clinical trials of men with prostate cancer, according to data presented at the 2015 American Urological Association annual meeting.

The definition of value by patients with cancer does not necessarily coincide with other definitions by other stakeholders.

The National Cancer Institute estimates that 231,840 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and nearly 40,300 women will die from the disease in 2015. Overall, 61% of women with breast cancer are diagnosed while the disease is confined to the breast; for these women, the 5-year survival rate is 98.6%. However, for women with metastatic breast cancer, the 5-year survival rate falls sharply, to 26%.

Washington, DC—Personalized medicine is the best way to take advantage of innovation in therapy, but the method in which it is paid for must be addressed to fully realize its potential, said Michael Kolodziej, MD, National Medical Director, Oncology Solutions, Aetna, at the Fifth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.