Clinical

The panel discussion, "Tackling Advanced Care Planning in Payment Reform: People and Politics" at the 2015 Community Oncology Conference, included a provider who is an active proponent of advanced care planning (ACP), a program director at a nonprofit health insurance company, and a healthcare consultant who until recently worked for a big health plan.

For all their talk about evidence-based medicine, a lot of doctors don't follow the clinical guidelines set by leading medical groups.

With the rising prices of innovative oncology treatments, many of which fall under specialty pharmaceuticals, curbing the cost of care is high on the agenda of healthcare providers.

Results presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2015 show the presence of a known driver of non-small cell lung cancer in small cell lung cancer, implying that promising treatments for the former may be applicable to the latter form of the disease.

The diabetes drug metformin is being used in some cancer treatment trials, but study results show the use of metformin does not improve survival of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.