Articles

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has responded to the chorus of voices calling for less complex rules governing electronic health records (EHRs) by not adopting the Voluntary 2015 Edition Electronic Health Record Certification Criteria.

A survey of patients with cancer and caregivers about the benefits they would like Medicare to cover in their last 6 months of life uncovered large gaps with the benefits that Medicare currently offers (Taylor DH Jr, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2014;32:3163-3168).

Madrid, Spain—Continuing an EGFR inhibitor after acquired resistance does not slow the progression of advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients receiving chemotherapy, according to a report presented at the 2014 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress.

Madrid, Spain—The positive results from 2 studies raised speculation about a possible resurrection of the breast cancer indication for bevacizumab, as reported at the 2014 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.

Madrid, Spain—Combination therapy with a BRAF inhibitor and a MEK inhibitor improves survival outcomes in patients with advanced BRAF-mutated melanoma, based on results of 2 phase 3 clinical trials presented at the 2014 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.

Madrid, Spain—Immunotherapy marches on, showing continued progress in treating advanced melanoma. At the 2014 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, first reports from a phase 3 clinical trial showed that the monoclonal anti–PD-1 antibody nivolumab achieved superior responses and longer progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) compared with standard chemotherapy in the second- or third-line treatment of patients whose melanoma progressed with ipilimumab therapy.

New York, NY—Four head and neck surgeons, 3 of whom use robots in their practice, squared off in a friendly debate on the pros and cons of advanced technology use, focusing on the examples of thyroidectomy and advanced oropharyngeal cancer, at the 2014 American Head and Neck Society annual meeting.

Medicare now provides coverage for the only FDA-approved noninvasive stool DNA screening test for colorectal cancer (CRC), after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its final National Coverage Determination in October.

>Madrid, Spain—Final results from the CLEOPATRA (Clinical Evaluation of Pertuzumab and Trastuzumab) trial show that dual HER2 blockade with the combination of pertuzumab and trastuzumab plus chemotherapy extended overall survival (OS) by almost 16 months compared with trastuzumab plus chemotherapy alone in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

The current fee-for-service reimbursement model used in oncology has jeopardized value-based cancer care, according to Jeffery Ward, MD, a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Workgroup on Payment Reform.