Economics of Cancer Care

San Francisco, CA—According to a recent cost-effectiveness analysis, third-line therapy with regorafenib (Stivarga) in patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) far ­exceeded accepted willingness-to-pay thresholds based on incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Presented at the 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, the results showed that regorafenib provided an additional 0.04 QALYs, at a cost of $39,391.

San Francisco, CA—In what is believed to be the first economic analysis of disease progression of patients with myeloma, researchers found that in patients with newly diagnosed myeloma, the monthly costs are reduced by 68% between the first 4 months through 18 months, but they then rise steeply when the disease relapses. The data were presented at the 2014 American Society of Hematology meeting.

Although often criticized as being overly expensive, innovations in drug development for hematologic malignancies meet standard benchmarks for cost-effectiveness, delivering value for their cost, suggest a team of health economics researchers led by Peter J. Neumann, ScD, Director, the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health, Tufts Medical Center, Boston (Saret CJ, et al. Blood. 2015 Feb 5. Epub ahead of print).

Although increasing the reimbursement rate for cancer screening tests does not consistently improve the likelihood of Medicaid beneficiaries being screened for cancer, raising the rate of reimbursement for office visits does consistently increase the likelihood that they will be screened for cancer, including breast or prostate cancer, according to results of a new analysis of Medicaid claims and enrollment data (Halpern MT, et al. Cancer. 2014 Aug 25. Epub ahead of print).

New York, NY—Four head and neck surgeons, 3 of whom use robots in their practice, squared off in a friendly debate on the pros and cons of advanced technology use, focusing on the examples of thyroidectomy and advanced oropharyngeal cancer, at the 2014 American Head and Neck Society annual meeting.

The current fee-for-service reimbursement model used in oncology has jeopardized value-based cancer care, according to Jeffery Ward, MD, a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Workgroup on Payment Reform.

The high cost of cancer care follows patients well into survivorship, as annual medical costs and losses in productivity exceed those of people without cancer by 50% to 100%, a study for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed (Ekwueme DU, et al. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2014;63:505-510).

Tampa, FL—Patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer consume 2.5 times more financial resources in their last 6 months of life, according to study results presented at the 2014 Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy meeting.

Telephone-based support programs are capable of reducing cancer-related medical costs by 10% to 30%, according to results of the first nurse-led study of the cost impact of telephonic case management in oncology.

Chicago, IL—The implementation of collaborative, secondary clinical pathway programs can improve outcomes and can lower costs when providers are already participating in another payer-sponsored pathway program. This conclusion comes from a study published online in conjunction with the 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.