Oncology

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 additional moves by the Trump administration to unravel the Affordable Care Act; Pfizer canceled a round of drug price increases after speaking to the president; advocates for 340B sound the alarm on efforts to reform the program.

Yesterday, drug manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb announced that the FDA has approved the combination nivolumab (Opdivo) plus low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients aged 12 years and older with microsatellite instability high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) that has progressed following a fluoropyrimidine, oxaliplatin, or irinotecan-based chemotherapy treatment.

Only 34% of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in a small study in China were likely to be positive about attempting treatment-free remission.

Researchers have recently discovered a new type of small-cell lung cancer, and the discovery may pave the way for the development of personalized medicine in order to target this newly discovered form of the disease.

The FDA has granted priority review for Keytruda (pembrolizumab) as a treatment for previously treated patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

John Schorge, MD, associate editor of The Green Journal, and Gynecologic Oncologist at Tufts Medical Center, discusses the findings of his study on neoadjuvant chemotherapy treatment of patients with advanced ovarian cancer.

Current standard of care treatment for rectal cancer, which recommends combining surgery with chemotherapy and radiation, fails to prolong survival in patients younger than 50 years of age, according to findings published early online in the journal Cancer.

Ixazomib taken twice weekly with lenalidomide and dexamethasone resulted in high overall response rate (ORR) and a durable response among patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM).

Experts at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Policy Summit discussed the present challenges of transitioning to alternative payment models at a time when the costs of many cancer therapies are rising.