Articles

Houston, TX—On March 29-31, 2012, approximately 200 oncologists, payers, employers, managed care executives, pharmacy benefit managers, and other stakeholders convened for the Second Annual Stakeholder Integration Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC). The mission of the conference was to align the various perspectives around the central needs of defining value in cancer care and developing strategies for enhancing patient outcomes.

Here’s a bold prediction for the new year. By 2020, the American health insurance industry will be extinct. Insurance companies will be replaced by accountable care organizations (ACOs) —groups of doctors, hospitals and other health care providers who come together to provide the full range of medical care for patients.

Interview with Linda Bosserman, MD, Clinical Oncologist and President of Wilshire Oncology Medical Group, La Verne, CA

San Francisco, CA—Using a prediction model to analyze the impact of adding targeted agents to the treatment of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs), everolimus (Afinitor) had a minimal overall impact on healthcare expenditures, by reducing infusions and surgical procedures costs, according to a study presented at the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

New Orleans, LA—According to the American Medical Association (AMA) and many oncologists, the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) diagnostic coding system will be a needless and expensive burden to oncology practices, without enhancing patient care.

San Francisco, CA—In a retrospective long-term comparative analysis of 3 prostate cancer treatment strategies, treatment with external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) was more toxic and costlier than prostatectomy and brachytherapy, according to Cleveland Clinic researchers who presented their data at the 2012 annual Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an updated label for imatinib (Gleevec; Novartis) for the use of the drug in adults after the surgical removal of CD117-positive gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST).

A new House bill—the Drug Shortage Prevention Act (H.R. 3839)— received bipartisan support to expedite the FDA review of drugs in shortage, improve communication within the agency and with stakeholders about possible shortages, and increase Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) quotas for medications in short supply.

As many as 15% to 30% of patients who receive BRAF inhibitors (eg, vemurafenib, dabrafenib) for the treatment of metastatic melanoma develop nonmelanoma skin cancers. Data from a new study suggest that this paradoxical effect may be caused by squamous-cell carcinoma cell lines with RAS mutation that proliferate on exposure to these drugs (Su F, et al. N Engl J Med. 2012;366:207-215).

Several studies have suggested that statins may have protective effects against cancer. The results of the first study to investigate the association between statin therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and the risk for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were recently published (Tsan YT, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2012;30:623-630).