Oncology

When you have constant evolving contract, there are changes, and so some of the feedback I’m getting is that sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the changes, said Peter Aran, MD, medical director of Population Health Management at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma.

There are a number of treatment choices available to treat patients with breast cancer and diagnostic tests can assist in the decision making, according to Adam M. Brufsky, MD, PhD, co-director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center at University of Pittsburgh.

CONCORD-3 includes the records of 37.5 million patients diagnosed with cancer from 2000 to 2014, 322 population-based cancer registries in 71 countries and territories, and data on patients' vital status at least 5 years following diagnosis.

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 news included President Donald Trump vowing to lower drug prices during his State of the Union address; 3 corporate giants joined forces on healthcare; and CAR T-cell therapy was named the cancer advance of the year.

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

Researchers at the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology in Atlanta, Georgia presented studies investigating the quality of life associated with various oncologic diseases.

New research on breast cancer biopsies and counseling after treatment will allow surgeons to have more meaningful conversations with their patients, according to a study published in JAMA Surgery.

Various presenters at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology in Atlanta, Georgia discussed the cost of care involved in several different cancer treatments.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

E-cigarette smokers have a high risk of developing lung and bladder cancer, as well as certain heart diseases due to carcinogenic e-cigarette smoke (ECS), according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

At the American Society of Hematology’s 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition, healthcare industry leaders sat down with The American Journal of Managed Care® to speak about what’s new and important about changes in healthcare. Access the video clips at ajmc.com/conferences/ash-2017.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

Coverage from the 59th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, December 9-12, 2017.

The Cancer Surveillance and Outcomes Research Team at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center recently developed an interactive online tool to help patients with breast cancer understand their treatment options more fully.

Providers should be involved in new reimbursement model development from day 1, said Roger Brito, DO, national director for oncology, Aetna.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has been named the Advance of the Year in ASCO’s Clinical Cancer Advances 2018. According to the annual report, CAR T-cell therapy is “poised to transform the outlook for children and adults with certain otherwise incurable cancers."

As a result of the Medicare Outpatient Prospective Payment System rule that took effect on January 1, 85% of 340B hospitals will see net payment increases in 2018. Rural hospitals will reap the largest benefits, according to an analysis conducted by Avalere and commissioned by Community Oncology Alliance.

Nat Turner, co-founder and CEO of Flatiron Health, explains how data can be used for finding potential patients to be included in clinical trials.

A team of 20 scientists in the fields of informatics, statistics, epidemiology, systematic reviews, cancer biology, and nutrition have developed a tool that will assess the links in published human studies between lifestyle factors and cancer.

As health information technology (IT) tools are continually being introduced into the healthcare sphere, organizations are utilizing these tools to optimize care coordination, patient experience, and patient outcomes. Today, 2 organizations join us; 1 uses a 2-way text messaging platform to support patients and increase medication adherence, and the other is teaming up with a pharmaceutical company to develop health IT solutions in order to enhance precision medicine in oncology.

Even though much more remains to be done on an island where half of its US residents still lack power, the situation is improving for cancer patients in Puerto Rico, doctors and organizations said recently in interviews with The American Journal of Managed Care®. In Puerto Rico, more than 75% of the cancer care is delivered in the community, not hospitals.

When a drug becomes first-line, I would like to think that as a clinician I would have access to that, but most importantly that my patients would not have to have a bake sale or take out a second mortgage on their homes to get therapies that are designed specifically for them, said A. Mark Fendrick, MD, director of the Center for Value-Based Insurance Design at the University of Michigan.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recommends that CMS guard cancer patients from high out-of-pocket costs that will impede patient access to life-extending cancer drugs, according to the society’s comments regarding proposed financial revisions to the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Program (Part D).

Every year, central lines are associated with causing blood infections in an estimated 400,000 patients with cancer. However, new research has found that changes in the microbiome may be responsible for some or many of the infections usually attributed to central lines.

Bo Gamble, director of Strategic Practice Initiatives at the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), explains how COA plays a role in supporting practices in preparing for Oncology Care Model.