Interviews

The disease groups that make up the OneOncology clinical pathways program cover 90% of patients with cancer and develop best practices for treating cancer in the majority of patients, said Edward “Ted” Arrowsmith, MD, MPH, managing partner and director of research, East Tennessee Division, Tennessee Oncology.

With multiple biosimilars approved for a reference product and different payers preferring particular products, communication between the clinical pharmacy team and the managed care team is crucial, said Timothy Murphy, MD, FACP, medical oncologist/hematologist with Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers.

Currently, there is no treatment approved for resectable cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC), nor do we have biomarkers to predict treatment response, noted Neil D. Gross, MD, FACS, head and neck surgeon and director of clinical research in the Department of Head and Neck Surgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Joseph Alvarnas, MD, vice president of government affairs at City of Hope and chief clinical adviser of AccessHope in Duarte, California, spoke on how the California Cancer Care Equity Act will allow oncologists to escalate the care of patients with advanced cancers toward established centers that can better meet their needs, as well as implications from the decision to exclude genomic testing coverage in the bill.

The OneOncology Annual Conference is being held November 11-13 in Nashville, Tennessee, and brings together practice leaders, physicians, and advanced practice providers to discuss the business of oncology and scientific advancements, explained Davey Daniel, MD, chief medical officer of OneOncology.

Melissa O'Connor, PhD, MBA, RN, FGSA, FAAN, endowed professor in community and home health nursing, M. Louise Fitzpatrick School of Nursing, Villanova University, and director, Gerontology Interest Group, spoke on the early use of technology in assessing older adults in the home setting and what research is required to improve best practices for their use.

Disease symptomatology may be the same, but the presentation of heart failure (HF) and heart attacks differ between women and men, explained Amresh Raina, MD, of the Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Liz Lightstone, MBBS, PhD, FRCP, professor of renal medicine for the faculty of medicine, Imperial College London, discussed recently approved therapeutic options for patients with lupus nephritis and what unmet needs persist in the management of the disease.

For the US health care system to be appropriately patient-centered, clinical trials need to be reflective of the country's diversity, said Joseph Alvarnas, MD, vice president of government affairs and senior medical director for employer strategy at City of Hope.

Debra Patt, MD, PhD, MBA, executive vice president of public policy and strategic initiatives at Texas Oncology, expands on her keynote address at the 2022 meeting of Patient-Centered Oncology Care®, which focused on DESTINY-Breast04 study findings and their applicability to managed care.

Representatives across 12 disease groups make up a council that sets clinical recommendations for oncology care and those decisions are being pushed out in the electronic medical record for decision support at the point of care, said Jeffrey Patton, MD, CEO, OneOncology, and executive chairman of the board, Tennessee Oncology. Patton will lead off OneOncology's Physician Leadership Conference, which runs November 11-13 in Nashville.

Ishani Ganguli, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, reacts to receiving the 2022 Seema S. Sonnad Emerging Leader in Managed Care Research Award.

Population health brings an important lens to both oncology practice and research, said Neil Iyengar, MD, associate attending physician, breast medical service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Nancy Reau, MD, section chief of hepatology at Rush University Medical Center, elaborates on survey results showing providers have varying awareness and understanding on guidelines for chronic liver disease.

Kashyap Patel, MD, president of Community Oncology Alliance and chief executive officer of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, previews the Patient-Centered Oncology Care® (PCOC) 2022 meeting happening this week in Nashville, Tennessee.

Tochi M. Okwuosa, DO, cardiologist and director of cardio-oncology at Rush University Medical Center, delivered several presentations at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions this year. Chief among them were the importance of cardiovascular health in cancer survivors and cardio-toxicity from cancer treatments.

Kausik K. Ray, MB ChB, MD, MPhil, is professor of public health and a consultant cardiologist at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom. At this year’s American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions, he presented findings from a 4-year open-label extension study of inclisiran, a small interfering RNA that targets proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin type 9 to lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C).

Keith C. Ferdinand, MD, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, FNLA, professor of medicine and the Gerald S. Berenson Endowed Chair in Preventative Cardiology, Tulane University School of Medicine, discusses the results of the recently halted FRESH trial, why there is such a great need for new antihypertensive agents, and possible contributory factors to outcome disparities between Black and White patients.

The DELIVER trial is the largest trial to date of SGLT2 inhibitor use in heart failure, and these latest data on dapagliflozin in heart failure with mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction show an extensive benefit on health status, noted Mikhail Kosiborod, MD, cardiologist at St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri.

Tom Robinson, vice president of global access at JDRF, talks about the data collection process in creating the Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Index.

To try to get a prescription digital therapeutic (PDT) covered, manufacturers need to align the value of their product to the priority of the payer, said Kelly Price, US head of rare disease at HRA Pharma.

Bhavesh Shah, RPh, BCOP, chief pharmacy officer and director of specialty and hematology/oncology pharmacy at Boston Medical Center, talks about what oncology agents in the pipeline he hopes to see become available.

The latest real-world clinical practice data from the VICTORIA trial of vericiguat bolster previous data on the medication’s benefit by showing that 92% of patients hospitalized for a worsening heart failure event would be eligible to start the therapy and that doing so would reduce their risk of heart failure hospitalization and cardiovascular death, noted Stephen J. Greene, MD, Duke University Medical Center and the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

In the ENNOBLE-ATE trial, Michael A. Portman, MD, FAHA, director, Pediatric Cardiovascular Research, Center for Integrative Brain Research, and professor of pediatrics at Seattle Children's, and his team evaluated the safety and efficacy of edoxaban, a direct oral anticoagulant previously only used among adult patients, among pediatric patients with cardiac disease.

Daniel E. Weiner, MD, MS, board certified nephrologist and lead navigator at Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute, spoke on the limitations and future potential of value-based payment systems for chronic kidney disease (CKD), including the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Treatment Choices (ETC) Model and the Kidney Care Choices (KCC) Models.

Curtis Warfield, MS, senior quality analyst, Indiana State Department of Health, and regional leader of National Kidney Foundation's Kidney Advocacy Committee, spoke on limitations regarding the current process of educating and managing lifestyle interventions for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), and how nephrologists can better integrate these strategies.

Douglas L. Mann, MD, professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and editor-in-chief of JACC: Basic to Translational Science discussed the first set of data reported on NTLA-2001, a novel investigative intravenous agent that targets the TTR gene and TTR protein levels, which have been shown to play a role in development of cardiac transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis.

Jen Gunter, MD, obstetrician and gynecologist, author, and specialist in chronic pain medicine and vulvovaginal disorders, spoke on the change in perspective regarding the medical and scientific community's role in dispelling health care misinformation on social media and in the press.

Jennifer Green, MD, professor of medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, member of Duke Clinical Research Institute, and EMPA-KIDNEY collaborator, discussed findings of the EMPA-KIDNEY trial presented at Kidney Week 2022, which showed a 28% improvement for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on empagliflozin, whether in reduced mortality from cardiovascular disease or progression of CKD.

Access to care remains a key issue when trying to deliver equitable kidney health care to patients, explained O.N. Ray Bignall II, MD, assistant chief diversity and health equity officer at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.