Articles

Los Angeles, CA—Payers are scrambling to devise effective strategies to cope with rapidly changing access to quality cancer care as a result of escalating costs. At the Fourth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care, John Fox, MD, MHA, Associate Vice President of Medical Affairs at Priority Health, Grand Rapids, MI, tackled changing access and payer challenges in oncology.

Los Angeles, CA—Much remains to be done to usher in the era of personalized healthcare, including better methods of drug development, said presenters at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.

The FDA approved the first anti–programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) therapy, pembrolizumab (Keytruda; Merck), for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma and disease progression after treatment with other melanoma therapy, such as ipilimumab, or, for a patient with BRAF V600 mutation, after BRAF inhibitor therapy.

Chicago, IL—The oncology community has taken a leadership role in payment reform and must retain that position as the pressure mounts for fee-for-service (FFS) alternatives, according to Mark B. McClellan, MD, PhD, Director, Health Care Innovation and Value Initiative, Brookings In­stitution, Washington, DC, and former Commissioner of the FDA.

Chicago, IL—Comparative effectiveness research (CER) and cost-effectiveness analyses have helped to define value as it relates to gynecologic oncology, said speakers during an education session on maximizing value and quality in gynecologic cancer care, at the 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

The high cost of cancer care follows patients well into survivorship, as annual medical costs and losses in productivity exceed those of people without cancer by 50% to 100%, a study for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed (Ekwueme DU, et al. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2014;63:505-510).

Tampa, FL—Patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer consume 2.5 times more financial resources in their last 6 months of life, according to study results presented at the 2014 Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy meeting.

Toronto, Ontario—New laser-based imaging technology differentiates malignant melanoma from other cancerous and benign skin lesions, according to a preliminary study presented at the 2014 Canadian Dermatology Association annual conference.