Articles

San Antonio, TX—Black women with clinically node-negative invasive breast cancer were less likely than white women to undergo sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) for axillary staging and also were more likely to develop lymphedema, according to a study presented at the CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

San Diego, CA—A real-time performance tracking system that monitors adherence to quality care metrics significantly improved adherence to quality standards over a 4-year period for 64 cancer centers participating in the Rapid Quality Reporting System (RQRS) “beta test,” according to researchers who are pioneering the program.

San Diego, CA—A multidisciplinary team approach for discussing end-of-life issues with patients reduces the use of the intensive care unit (ICU) without shortening survival time, researchers from the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University said at ASCO’s inaugural 2012 Quality Care Symposium.

In the December 2012 issue of Value-Based Cancer Care (VBCC), several Editorial Board members addressed the recent events surrounding the cost of cancer drugs and the reduction of the price of ziv-aflibercept (Zaltrap). VBCC continued this discussion with Al B. Benson III, MD, FACP, FASCO.

San Antonio, TX—In determining the optimal treatment of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), gene expression profiling using the Oncotype DX DCIS Score is more cost-effective than standard clinical assessment, primarily because it avoids radiotherapy for approximately 66% of these patients.

Atlanta, GA—The use of azacitidine (Vidaza) in patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is associated with the reduced need for red blood cell (RBC) transfusion and transfusion dependence, a report from the 2012 American Society of Hematology meeting showed.

Vienna, Austria—Several studies presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress offered a look into what many believe will lead to the application of genome-based biomarker information into clinical use based on the concept of personalized medicine, although not all of the results were unconditionally encouraging.

A recent study compared the benefit of abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) with prednisone versus placebo plus prednisone for patients with mCRPC before chemotherapy (Ryan CJ, et al. N Engl J Med. 2013;368:138-148).

Ensuring access to clinical trials to all patients is important not only to ensure equal access to care but also to make sure that clinical trial results can be generalized to all patients in the real-world setting. For the first time, a team of British researchers has recently investigated this question, revealing important implications for healthcare stakeholders (Noor AM, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2012;31:224-230).

Boston, MA—Researchers believe they are closing in on a better way to identify breast cancers that are particularly dangerous and therefore require more aggressive therapy.