Providers

The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) retains the spirit of an upstart advocacy group, while working to look ahead at innovative technologies, care delivery trends, and other events that threaten independent practices, said oncology leaders while attending their annual meeting this week.

On the first full day of conference activity at AMCP 2023, a morning session examined prior authorization (PA) through a lens of refining the current process and the potential role of clinical trial data in PA criteria.

While melanoma is one of the most aggressive cancers, making early detection crucial for outcomes, because it is visible on the surface, there are opportunities to catch it early, said Sancy Leachman, MD, PhD, professor and chair in the Department of Dermatology and director of the Melanoma Research Program at the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University.

A panel assembled at the American Academy of Dermatology 2023 Annual Meeting encouraged the audience of dermatologists to advocate together for needed changes in payment, access, and practice.

Dermatologists recommended biologics at similar rates in scenarios describing Black, Hispanic, and White patients with moderate to severe psoriasis.

Baseline risk assessment that includes prior treatment history for cancer, prior cardiovascular events, and markers for potential heart damage are all important, emphasizes Tochi M. Okwuosa, DO, cardiologist and director of cardio-oncology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

The patient received a diagnosis of myasthenia gravis (MG), then underwent a medical odyssey as physicians attempted to pin down the cause of his neurological symptoms.

With both biologics and Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors available to treat atopic dermatitis, providers have more options for patients, said Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, FAAD, of Mount Sinai.

Using the DataDerm database has uncovered disparities in prescription patterns, but it’s still early in the process of understanding why those disparities might exist, said Robert Dellavalle, MD, PhD, MSPH, and Ramiro Rodriguez, MD, both of University of Colorado School of Medicine.

There are certain considerations when choosing which patient is the best fit for a biologic to treat hidradenitis suppurativa, said Haley Naik, MD, FAAD, associate professor of dermatology, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.

Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction has previously been linked to symptoms and mortality in pulmonary hypertension (PH), as well as in other conditions, and RV function plays an important role in disease risk and potentially in intensification of pulmonary arterial hypertension treatment.

Similar to other therapies, approximately 40% of patients with vitiligo who stopped treatment with ruxolitinib cream relapsed, but they achieved repigmentation once treatment was reinitiated, explained John Harris, MD, PhD, FAAD, director of the Vitiligo Clinic and Research Center at UMass Chan Medical School.

Lower levels of certain biomarkers were predictive of treatment response for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) at day 28, investigators found.

Many people often don’t connect the dots between climate change and its impact on skin health, but these effects have been happening for years, said Eva R. Parker, MD, associate professor of dermatology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Investigators of this study noted the need for more data on risks of malignancies among patients who have atopic dermatitis (AD), with the chronic skin condition already having significant associations with nonmelanoma skin cancer, lymphoma, keratinocyte carcinoma, and pancreatic and kidney cancers.

At the American Academy of Dermatology annual meeting there will be multiple presentations on hot topics and the latest advances in microneedling, explained Monica Li, MD, clinical instructor, Department of Dermatology and Skin Science, University of British Columbia.

The combination of smoking and socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with risk of asthma among different socio-occupational groups, this new study found.

Lee A. Norman, MD, MHS, MBA, spoke at The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®)’s Institute for Value-Based Medicine®'s March 2023 event on population health about leading physician practices and navigating through change; here, he talks about how the COVID-19 pandemic shifted how he thinks about resiliency during times of intense stress and work.

The FDA approved an expanded indication for abemaciclib (Verzenio) in combination with endocrine therapy for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients with hormone receptor (HR)–positive, HER2-negative, node-positive, early breast cancer that is at a high risk of recurrence.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Jennifer Schneider, MD, co-founder and chief executive officer of Homeward, a value-based care provider aiming to improve access to high-quality care in rural communities through tech-enabled clinical services, partnerships with local physicians and health plans, and community-level demographic data.

Researchers retrospectively analyzed data from patients who visited 2 myeloma centers between March and October 2020, before vaccines were widely available but during large-scale implementation of regular screening processes.

Pegcetacoplan was approved by the FDA to treat geographic atrophy (GA), providing a treatment option for patients who previously had none, explained Eleonora Lad, MD, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology, Duke University.

Results from the CLEAR Outcomes trial were presented today at the 72nd American College of Cardiology (ACC) Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology. Plans for a broader label are in the works.

Seeking to speed up the execution of evidence-based care practices, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced the 42 health systems across the country who will join a 5-year program to build capacity and implementation to improve health care outcomes.

The 2 therapies, a 1-food and a 6-food elimination diet both used for eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), were compared for outcomes after 6 weeks.

Outcomes from the loop diuretics were compared in this analysis, with study participants from the TRANSFORM-HF trial matched 1:1, all having been hospitalized for either do novo disease or worsening chronic disease.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Elizabeth Cuevas, MD, division chief of Allegheny Health Network’s (AHN) Center for Inclusion Health, on prevalent health inequities facing marginalized communities and strategies to identify and address these issues.