San Francisco, CA—Acute care utilization, namely, emergency department visits and hospitalizations, are surprisingly common among patients with early breast cancer, according to a retrospective study using an administrative database in Ontario, Canada.

The findings coincide with current efforts, at least in the United States, to reduce acute care utilization as a chief means of reducing the cost of treating cancer. In fact, keeping patients with cancer away from emergency departments and hospitals has become a quality measure in many healthcare systems.

Vienna, Austria—The identification of genetic mutations and tumor biomarkers to select the right drug for the right patient are not enough to satisfy the need for personalized cancer care, according to Kathy Redmond, MSc, RN, Editor of Cancer World magazine, a publication of the European School of Oncology and former president of the European Oncology Nursing Society, who addressed the topic of personalized medicine at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncol­ogy Congress.

In this article we address the final payment rules issued on November 1, 2012, by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), and the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Pay­ment System. These annual updates to Medicare payment rates for physicians and hospitals can have a dramatic impact on reimbursement and incentives within the Medicare program, but they also tend to impact trends in the commercial insurance market.

For the purposes of treatment, lung cancer is classified as non–small cell, which accounts for approximately 85% of cases, or as small cell, representing 14% of cases.1 Non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the leading cause of death worldwide.2 The greatest risk factor for lung cancer is cigarette smoking. Other risk factors include smoking pipes or cigars and exposure to agents such as radon gas, secondhand smoke, asbes­tos, chromium, cadmium, arsenic, some organic chemicals, radiation, and air pollution.

Boston, MA—The patterns of use of radiotherapy have changed over time in elderly patients with stage I breast cancer, and these changes have financial implications for the healthcare system. In elderly patients with favorable-risk breast cancer, the use of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and brachytherapy steadily increased from 2001 to 2007, while the use of standard external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) decreased. Data are lacking on whether the new­er technologies improve outcomes in this patient population.

San Francisco, CA—Three frequently used radiologic tests rarely detect metastases in patients with a new diagnosis of breast cancer and should not be routinely performed, according to a comprehensive literature review presented at the 2012 Breast Cancer Symposium.

Houston, TX—Most employers do not understand biologics and specialty pharmacy well enough to use services appropriately and to take advantage of their benefits, said F. Randy Vogenberg, RPh, PhD, Principal, Institute for Integrated Healthcare, Sharon, MA, an employer benefit consulting company.

Speaking at the Second Annual Association for Value-Based Cancer Care Conference, Dr Vogenberg drew from a recent survey of employers to suggest actions that need to be taken to better integrate healthcare stakeholders.

Vienna, Austria—Costs associated with first-line pemetrexed/cisplatin are significantly lower than those of carboplatin/paclitaxel/bevacizumab for the treatment of advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to an anal­ysis presented at the 2012 Euro­pean Society for Medical Oncol­ogy Congress.

Vienna, Austria—Adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to chemotherapy im­proves outcomes in patients with platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer, according to results of the phase 3 clinical trial AURELIA, which was presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress. Bevacizumab im­proved progression-free survival (PFS) and overall response rate (ORR) with any of the 3 chemotherapy regimens in the study, but adding bevacizumab to weekly paclitaxel was the most active combination in an exploratory analysis of the trial.

Phoenix, AZ—Using the paradigm of individualizing drug therapy based on a patient’s genetics, a group of oncologists and genomic experts have de­signed a genomic prescribing system that they hope will significantly reduce the staggeringly high rate of adverse drug reactions associated with prescription drugs in the United States. Principal investigator Peter H.

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  • Rheumatology Practice Management
  • American Health & Drug Benefits
  • Value-Based Cancer Care
  • Value-Based Care in Myeloma
  • Value-Based Care in Neurology