Articles

The US Supreme Court’s ruling on June 13 in the case of the Association for Molecular Pathology v Myriad Genetics will have significant implications for the future of cancer testing, molecular diagnostics, and treatment.

>Orlando, FL—The use of patient navigators can reduce racial disparities in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening and can potentially reduce the mortality rates—and do both cost-effectively, according to studies presented at Digestive Disease Week 2013.

Hollywood, FL—End-of-life issues have advanced in a positive direction since the so-called death panel controversy of 2009, but health plans still need to promote these discussions, said J. Russell Hoverman, MD, PhD, Vice President, Quality Programs, Texas Oncology, at the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.

At the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care, several Meet the Experts roundtable discussions addressed the hottest topics in oncology.

Hollywood, FL—Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) will soon have the new challenge of dealing with the confusion of biosimilars, according to Douglas S. Burgoyne, PharmD, President and Managing Partner, VRx Pharmacy Services, Salt Lake City, UT, a full-service PBM company that provides medication therapy management, case management, and other clinical services to employer group waiver plans and commercial payers.

A new study investigated whether combined immune blockade with ipilimumab and nivolumab would increase survival in patients with advanced melanoma (Wolchok JD, et al. N Engl J Med. 2013;369:122-133).

A new phase 2 clinical trial is one of the first to investigate the use of hormonal therapy without chemotherapy as a neoadjuvant strategy for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer (Rimawi MF, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2013;31:1726-1731).

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the tyrosine kinase inhibitor afatinib (Gilotrif; Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals) for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene mutations exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R substitution.

At the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care, several Meet the Experts roundtable discussions addressed the hottest topics in oncology. James T. Kenney, Jr, RPh, MBA, Pharmacy Operations Manager at Harvard Pilgrim, and Douglas S. Burgoyne, PharmD, President and Managing Partner, VRx Pharmacy Services, discussed the topic of brown and white bagging at one of these sessions.