Oncology

The first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy was approved just a year ago, changing the face of treatment for certain types of leukemias and lymphomas but carrying with it the downsides of toxicity and cost. A year later, scientists from a major cancer center said that they’ve made headway to discovering more about the T-cell signaling patterns and that understanding more about the biological pathways could help design the next generation of CAR-T treatments.

Payment reform efforts that don't engage patients are missing out on an opportunity for greater improvements, especially in cancer, where patients face substantial cost sharing.

Providing patient-centered comprehensive care to long-term cancer survivors may lead to reduced total healthcare expenditures. Check out our website’s new table/figure pop-up feature! Click on the name of a table or figure in the text to see it in your browser.

Next week, a CMS committee will hold a day-long meeting to discuss a national coverage determination (NCD) for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapies, and in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, Peter B. Bach, MD, MAPP, reviewed several strategies open to CMS as it continues to try to determine how to pay for CAR T.

A recent study found that the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor talazoparib extended progression-free survival (PFS) and improved quality of life over chemotherapies for patients with metastatic human epidermal growth factor 2-negative breast cancer and mutations in the BRCA 1/2 genes.

A new technology platform utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) could change how drug combinations are designed and help doctors to identify optimal personalized drug combinations for patients with multiple myeloma.

The Samfund conducted a preliminary investigation into the impact of the Affordable Care Act on young adult cancer survivors’ medical cost burden and access to health care.

For insights on this issue, Evidence-Based Oncology™ spoke with Lynda Kwon Beaupin, MD, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist who recently became the director of CanSurvive, the pediatric cancer survivorship program at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. Beaupin and her colleagues in the Consortium of Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Centers, which includes oncologists from major cancer centers including Johns Hopkins, are working to address the nuances that come with treating adolescent and young adult cancer patients and looking for ways to increase their quality of life.

Thea Danze lights up the room wherever she goes; she loves space and music and fire trucks. Since 2012, she has been the namesake and spokesperson for a foundation created to raise funds and awareness about pediatric brain tumors. Called Thea’s Star of Hope, the foundation supports development of therapies that will treat brain tumors without the toxic adverse effects that Thea has endured.

CareMore's program is a first-in-industry approach to targeting loneliness as a health condition that can be diagnosed and treated through community-based interventions and close engagement with patients.

In a study published in JAMA Oncology, researchers found that a majority of patients eligible for immune checkpoint inhibitors started to receive the treatment within a few months of the drugs approval.

The FDA has approved a new drug to treat 2 rare types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma based on phase 3 clinical trial results that found mogamulizumab-kpkc improved progression-free survival and had a higher overall response rate compared with the chemotherapy vorinostat.

A new rule in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act’s 2019 Quality Payment Program and the proposed 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule could negatively affect the quality of cancer care for Medicare beneficiaries, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The global age-standardized lung cancer mortality rate among women is expected to increase by 43% from 2015 to 2030, while the global age-standardized breast cancer mortality rate is projected to decrease by 9%, according to an analysis published in Cancer Research.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

This week, the top managed care stories included, CMS allowing step therapy in Medicare Advantage plans in a bid to allow for drug price negotiation; larger practices with more resources, technology and care management processes have higher readmission rates than smaller practices; studies find that empagliflozin also reduces liver fat in patients with diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, along with the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators Network (PALISI), recently published guidelines in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology for the management of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The Trump administration will allow Medicare Advantage plans to negotiate prices for Part B drugs by providing them the opportunity to create plans that utilize step therapy. However, some in the healthcare industry view step therapy, also known as "fail first," as dangerous to patients with life-threatening diseases, such as cancer.

Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, instructor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, attending physician of medical oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses challenges with managing patients with HER2-positive breast cancer and how clinical trials provide another treatment approach for these patients.

In July 2018, the FDA approved iobenguane I 131 (Azedra), the first treatment for patients with unresectable pheochromocytoma or paraganglioma, which are rare tumors of the adrenal gland, that require systemic anticancer therapy. These tumors, which typically appear at an early age and are associated with premature death, can increase the production of epinephrines and norepinephrines, leading to a host of symptoms, including hypertension, vomiting, weakness, and chest pain.

A blood-based test to assess tumor mutational burden (TMB) was recently discovered as being able to accurately identify patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who could benefit from checkpoint inhibitor treatment. The study, conducted by researchers at UC Davis, Genentech, and Foundation Medicine, was published in Nature Medicine.

Celyad, a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, recently announced that the FDA has accepted its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for CYAD-101, the first non–gene-edited allogeneic clinical program.

In addition to survival among adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with hematological malignancies lagging behind that of children and older adults, AYAs also face unique challenges related to their physical, psychosocial, and economic circumstances.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

Bristol-Myers Squibb recently announced that the European Commission has approved nivolumab (Opdivo) for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients with melanoma that have lymph node involvement or metastatic disease and who have undergone complete resection.

The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute recently announced that it is partnering with Royal Philips in order to establish and provide improved clinical pathways in cancer care.