Dr C.K. Wang: How COTA's Real-World Data Platform Helps Oncologists Make Informed Decisions

In addition to helping make treatment decisions, COTA's real-world data platform can help oncologists understand and identify areas where there is treatment variability and help them work to contain cost in the long run, explained C.K. Wang, MD, senior medical director, COTA.

Transcript

How does COTA’s real-world data platform help oncologists make decisions about their patients?

Oncologists today in coming up with a treatment plan, first of all, it’s a very complex process, but they resort to multiple sources. First and foremost is drug approvals. Secondly, the well-established treatment guidelines, and third, clinicians often draw from their own personal experience. That said, the patients that are sitting in from of them may not fit into any of those previous constructs. For example, today, only 3% to 5% of cancer patients participate in clinical trials, which ultimately lead to drug approvals. It is likely that patient sitting in front of the provider in that patient population was never represented or was not well-represented in that clinical trial.

So, what real-world data does and what COTA’s platform can do is to surface real-world treatment approaches for those patients, as well as real-world toxicities and outcomes. All of these different factors can help a clinician then ultimately make the best treatment decision for the patient. Now that said, real-world data and COTA’s platform is currently not being used at the point of care, but there are many exploratory discussions looking into this. I think that ultimately, how this can benefit providers, in addition to making treatment decisions, is to allow them insight into how they’ve treated these patients in the past, and therefore understand and identify areas where there is tremendous treatment variability and help them work to contain cost in the long run.