Elevating Cancer Care Through Personalized Treatment

Earlier this year, for a oncology-focused Institute for Value-Based Medicine® event, The American Journal of Managed Care® partnered with several prominent health care institutions from across the Nashville region to elevate value in cancer care by discussing the roles that academic, hospital, and community partnerships; precision medicine; pharmacy; and health equity fulfill when delivering care in the oncology space.

Lipscomb University and Metropolitan General Hospital, Meharry Medical College, Sarah Cannon, Tennessee Oncology, Thyme Care, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and West Cancer Center were represented.

In this discussion with Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, FASCO, codirector, GI Oncology; coleader, GI Cancer Research Program; and director, Young Adult Cancers Program, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, she illustrates how Vanderbilt works to specify each individual patient’s cancer care regimen and treatment path. Eng participated on the panel discussion, “Health Equity in Cancer Care Delivery.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

How does Vanderbilt integrate its mission to elevate cancer care across its care offerings?

I would say that Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center—because many of our consultants are part of the university medical center—what we truly try to do for our cancer patients is really try to focus on their unmet needs. Especially in regards to cancer treatment nowadays, the focus of a lot of therapy is more personalized, biomarker-driven therapy.

I think because we are fortunate enough to be a large academic institution, we have good rapport with pharma, and as a result, have historically been involved in many pivotal clinical trials. Just for the audience, I'm largely a GI [gastrointestinal] medical oncology specialist, but I do assist with strategic initiatives regarding pharma interests in the cancer center itself.

I think that when we're talking about elevating value in cancer care, I think it's really important to try to be able to offer patients care more specific to their malignancy. We recognize the importance that in the majority, at least solid tumors, next-generation sequencing or mutation analysis, or any type of amplification or any type of fusion protein, is noted based upon the patient's existing tumor, and we will work with other companies to identify those various molecular alterations. That way we can provide patients the most optimal care in regards to treatment.

But also, I think the value arises when we work very much so in a multidisciplinary team effort with our surgical colleagues, radiation colleagues, pathology, etc, and a lot of our treatment planning is discussed in our tumor board, so you're getting multiple opinions of people, even though you may have only had 1 consultation with 1 doctor—you're getting multiple opinions within 1 meeting about the best approach to your cancer. I think that that really helps optimize the value for a cancer care patient, plus all the supportive services that are available at Vanderbilt, such as social work, supportive care, oncology clinic, to optimize the overall well-being of the patient, nutrition, wound care, etc.