Laura Joszt, MA

A new report highlighting the twin pressures hospitals have faced over the last 18 months shows that as reimbursement delays and denials increased and cash and investments decreased, operating expenses have risen sharply.

Managing toxicities for patients on immunotherapy requires collaboration with specialists to manage specific organ toxicities and moving beyond steroids, according to a presentation at the ESMO Congress 2023.

Neoadjuvant cemiplimab followed by surgery resulted in favorable survival outcomes for patients with resectable stage II to IV cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), addressing an area of unmet need, explained Neil D. Gross, MD, FACS, of MD Anderson.

In part 2 of this 2-part podcast, a panel of experts discusses implementation biosimilars in biologic-naïve patients, auto-substitution, and more.

A simulation study estimated the impact of biosimilar substitution on total cost of care (TCOC) and provider financial performance in the final performance period of the Oncology Care Model.

The American Medical Association (AMA) is continuing to urge Congress to stop the impending 3.4% cut to physicians, and other organizations also weigh in on the pros and cons of the 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.

Patients with diverse skin types can experience diagnostic delays, access to care issues, and quality-of-life burdens that a navigator program may be able to help alleviate.

In part 1 of this 2-part podcast, a panel of experts discusses the provider and payer considerations for transitioning patients to biosimilars, approaches to prescribing biosimilars over reference products, and more.

Tirzepatide is already approved to treat type 2 diabetes, and is now approved for chronic weight management in adults with obesity or overweight with at least 1 weight-related condition.

Regardless of kidney disease subtype, biomarkers can successfully ascertain risk of kidney disease progression, said Steven Coca, DO, MS, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

There is great value, both for clinical trials and clinical practice, in biomarkers that identify patients at greatest risk of developing chronic kidney disease (CKD) after acute kidney injury, explained Steven Coca, DO, MS, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

The use of a bioartificial kidney could save the transplant population from a life of immunosuppression drugs and save costs, according to Shuvo Roy, PhD, professor of bioengineering at the University of California San Francisco.

The Enhancing Oncology Model is trying to address a number of the systemic challenges oncology faces without giving practices the tools and resources they need, said Nicolas Ferreyros, managing director of policy, advocacy, and communications, Community Oncology Alliance.

Pregnancies for patients on dialysis are high risk and care by a multidisciplinary team is extremely important for a successful birth, explained Silvi Shah, MD, MS, FASN, assistant professor, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, University of Cincinnati.

Data shows sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are efficacious and can be used in almost all common kidney diagnoses, explained William G. Herrington, MD, MA, MBBS, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford.

For patients with chronic kidney disease, dose adjustments for other medications requires coordination with other specialists to maintain treatment efficacy, explained Linda Awdishu, PharmD, FASN, professor and division head of clinical pharmacy at the University of California, San Diego, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Smaller noncoding RNA is being used in clinical practice and as knowledge grows of long noncoding RNA, use of it should follow, explained Laura Denby, PhD, Kidney Research UK Senior Fellow, senior lecturer and principal investigator in the Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh.

Wezlana is the first biosimilar to reference Stelara approved in the United States. The product will launch in 2025.

The approval of secukinumab is the second approved biologic to treat hidradenitis suppurativa.

Coverage from the Institute for Value-Based Medicine session with Minnesota Oncology.

Coverage from the Institute for Value-Based Medicine event with Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The location of integration of a gene therapy has been crucial for the safety and efficacy of the treatment to cure infants with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency.

The ranibizumab biosimilar was the first in ophthalmology to the US market in 2022, but its competition has already had a year of interchangeability exclusivity.

MARIPOSA demonstrated the combination reduced risk of progression or death by 30% compared with osimertinib. MARIPOSA-2 found amivantamab plus chemotherapy and amivantamab plus chemotherapy and lazertinib also improved progression-free survival (PFS) over chemotherapy after progression on osimertinib.

Datopotamab deruxtecan not only demonstrated a statistically significant improvement over chemotherapy for breast cancer and docetaxel for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but the intervention therapy had less toxicity.

Enfortumab vedotin plus pembrolizumab not only beat chemotherapy in the first-line setting for locally advanced metastatic urothelial cancer for the first time in decades, but it nearly doubled progression-free survival and overall survival vs chemotherapy.

Regardless of presence of brain metastases, patients with HER2-mutant (HER2m) non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) showed systemic responses to trastuzumab deruxtecan. In addition, the therapy showed intracranial efficacy to reduce the size of brain metastases.

The results of CheckMate 77T showcase the improved event-free survival for patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer who receive nivolumab in both the neoadjuvant and adjuvant setting and may have practice-changing implications.

Health equity coverage appearing in the October 2023 issue of Evidence-Based Oncology.

With stringent criteria, randomized controlled trials are the cornerstone of cancer intervention research, but the result is they do not represent the majority of patients, which leads to a gap between the efficacy seen in trials and the effectiveness in the real-world setting.