ASCO 2015 Highlights

>Chicago, IL—Hospitalizations and readmissions add substantial costs to healthcare. The annual cost of 30-day hospital readmissions in the United States is estimated to be $16 billion.

Chicago, IL—The number of oral oncolytic drugs has increased dramatically, but despite increased convenience, there is growing concern regarding adherence, said Winson Y. Cheung, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia Division of Medical Oncology, Vancouver, at a session on adherence at ASCO 2013.

Removing copays may help boost mammography screening rates for all age-groups above age 40 years. One insurer found a significant increase in screening rates with the removal of a copay, said Jeffrey M. Peppercorn, MD, MPH, Medical Oncologist at Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC.

Hollywood, FL—Seismic shifts in the oncology landscape have led to pricing and policy changes that affect the delivery of quality care in oncology, said Michael N. Dubroff, DO, FACOP, Senior Director, Payer Support for Genentech, who lent his perspective at the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.

The following quotes were assembled from interviews and news coverage by FierceHealthFinance, revealing healthcare decision makers’ value-based perspectives on some of the main problems currently facing providers and the US healthcare system.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill for fiscal year 2014 that provides $30.9 billion to the National Institutes of Health, of which one sixth—$5.1 billion—is designated for the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

A group of scientists led by Tak Mak, MD, Director of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Dennis Slamon, MD, PhD, Director of Clinical/Translational Research, University of California, Los Angeles, and supported by funding from donor grants only, has filed a New Drug Application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a drug developed based on the target enzyme PLK4, which plays a crucial role in cancer-cell division.

The completion of the Breast Cancer Treatment Plan and Summary Standard and Implementation Guide, the first phase in a set of interoperability standards, was announced at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Hospital readmissions for chronic diseases, including cancer, are associated with a significant and often preventable financial burden in the United States.

Just this month, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a report titled “Delivering High-Quality Can­cer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis.”¹ This consensus report convened a committee of experts to examine the quality of cancer care in the United States and formulate recommendations for its improvement.