Economics & Value

An analysis comparing the prescribing habits of urology practices shows that, despite treatment guideline recommendations to the contrary, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists, which are only indicated for the palliative treatment of advanced prostate cancer, are routinely prescribed for patients with localized, low- or intermediate-grade prostate cancer, particularly by urologists who have no practice affiliation with a medical school.

;Researchers looking at whether guideline-directed adjuvant treatments for breast cancer were actually being administered in rural areas of the United States found that only 41% of the patients in this study received all of the suggested treatment modalities for breast cancer.

The use of costly diagnostic imaging of uncertain value is increasing rapidly for patients with localized non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database.

A case management program for terminally ill patients with cancer can reduce cancer-related healthcare costs and extend hospice length of stay, according to an analysis of the Cancer Support Program (CSP) of Optum Health, a health services company, which was presented at the 2013 National Comprehensive Cancer Network^® annual conference.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy for older patients with ovarian cancer would save $19 million annually compared with primary de­bulking surgery, based on a new cost- model assessment

Early palliative care proved to be cost-effective and cost-saving versus routine end-of-life care for patients with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to a decision-model analysis.

Hollywood, FL—Community oncology will not survive in the absence of novel management strategies and process improvements, according to Michael Kolodziej, MD, FACP, National Medical Director of Oncology Solutions, who offered his insights at the Third Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is of interest to women who are concerned about breast cancer; however, these women are unwilling to pay the current costs, researchers from the Department of Surgery and Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Medical Center, reported at the 2012 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—For the second- line treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC), the total costs were 14% lower with bevacizu­mab (Avastin) than with cetuximab (Erbitux), according to an analysis presented at the 2013 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.