Top 5 Most-Read Evidence-Based Oncology™ Articles in 2023

In 2023, a pair of pieces that addressed possible links between the COVID-19 pandemic and more aggressive, early onset cancer cases were among the most read articles in Evidence-Based Oncology™ (EBO).

Here are the most-read EBO articles.

5. The Role of Automation in Meeting the Growing Demand for CAR T-Cell Therapies

John Tomtishen, vice president of operations at Cellares, discusses the challenges of manufacturing delays in meeting the growing demand for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy and how alternative manufacturing designs could help solve this problem.

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4. To Expand Access to Cancer Expertise, Collaboration Is Key

This article from Mark Stadler, BBA, CEO of AccessHope, and Sach Jain, MBA, CEO and founder of Carrum Health, describes the efforts to connect AccessHope’s cancer subspecialists with members who have signed on for Carrum Health’s efforts to bring concierge-style cancer delivery to employer-sponsored health plans, while lowering costs. Later in 2023, EBO featured Carrum Health in its December issue after it formed a partnership with Texas Oncology.

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3. COVID-19 Fallout on Individuals, Economy, and Health System to Last for Years, White Paper Concludes

In 2023, EBO Associate Editor Kashyap Patel, MD, drew attention to patterns he has observed in his community oncology practice in rural South Carolina: uncommonly high occurrences of aggressive cancers, such as cholangiocarcinoma, being diagnosed in patients years younger than what is typical for the given disease. Patel is CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, based in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Appearing in the October issue of EBO, this articleprovided details of a report that emerged from a conclave on the topic that Patel co-hosted in May 2023 with Afshin Beheshti, MD, president of the COVID-19 International Research Team and bioinformatician and principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center.

According to the report, the public health and economic toll of long COVID will be felt for years to come.

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2. ASH 2022: Bispecific Antibodies

This roundup piece from our annual coverage of the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition included 2022 updates on talquetamab (Talvey), teclistamab (Tecvayli), and mosunetuzumab (Lunsumio).

The article also included an interview with Ajai Chari, MD, who presented the phase 1 and 2 results of the MonumenTAL-1 study of talquetamab. The drug was granted accelerated approval by the FDA in August 2023 based on the results of this study.

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1. Kashyap Patel, MD, Sees Link Between COVID-19 and Cancer Progression, Calls for More Biomarker Testing

This article appeared online in March and was published in the April issue of EBO. In it, Patel discussed the evidence to support the observation that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, “can set off inflammatory responses in tumors, causing cancer to progress much sooner and more aggressively, and even reawaken dormant cancer cells.”

After speaking with colleagues in both the United States and in his native India, where the pandemic was especially deadly, Patel launched a personal crusade to encourage health plans to study these patterns, including paying for biomarker testing to track patterns of inflammation that could be linked to early cancers.

Patel raised concerns that the incidence of obesity-related cancer were already rising sharply among younger adults and the addition of COVID-19 created a “perfect storm” of factors to trigger inflammatory responses and cause cancer to arrive earlier and more deadly than in the past.

Since the articles regarding COVID-19 and cancer appeared in EBO, Patel was featured in a commentary in Fortune on the exploration of links between COVID-19 and cancer.

Read the full article.