June 2012, Vol 3, No 4

Houston, TX—The use of the Level I Pathways Program at McKesson Specialty Health/US Oncology Network over the past 5 years has reduced treatment variability and resulting costs, according to Roy A. Beveridge, MD, chief medical officer, McKesson Specialty Health/US Oncology Network.

n an interview with the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC), Jennifer Malin, MD, PhD, Medical Director of Oncology at WellPoint, emphasized that patients should remain the central focus in novel or innovative reimbursement models.

Hollywood, FL—Is corporate America doing enough to promote optimal cancer care? The provision of insurance coverage alone is no longer sufficient for America’s workers.

Chicago, IL—At the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, attendees flocked to sessions on the treatment of melanoma to hear about the next generation of agents that are building on the success achieved with the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf), and the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab (Yervoy), which have added new treatment options where, not long ago, none existed.

Chicago, IL—Abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) delays disease progression when used with prednisone before chemotherapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, said Charles J. Ryan, MD, Associate Professor of Clinical Med icine, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Francisco, who reported a planned interim analysis of a phase 3 study at the 2012 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

In men with metastatic prostate cancer, especially those with minimal disease spread, continuous rather than intermittent hormonal therapy should be considered the preferred therapy, according to the results of a large multicenter phase 3 international trial.

Chicago, IL—The novel antibody drug conjugate trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) significantly extended progression-free survival (PFS) and was very well tolerated in the first results of the international EMILIA trial, which were presented at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting.

Ipilimumab—added in a phased regimen to paclitaxel and carboplatin chemotherapy—increased progressionfree survival (PFS) and immune-related PFS in a randomized, double-blind, international, phase 2 study of previously untreated adult patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

In a single-arm, phase 2 study, inotuzumab ozogamicin, a CD22 monoclonal antibody conjugate, showed potential utility as a monotherapy that may improve the often poor prognosis for patients with refractory or relapsed acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL; Kantarjian H, et al. Lancet Oncol. 2012;13:403-411).

Current reimbursement policies for cancer chemotherapies do not ensure that the value and cost of therapies are commensurate with outcomes.