The 2019 Quality Care Symposium took place September 6–7, 2019, in San Diego. Abstracts presented at the symposium focused on efforts to improve the quality of care for patients with cancer. Highlights from this year’s meeting included research on the cost of care and patient participation in clinical trials.
As the United States grapples with the high costs of cancer care, two new studies explored varying aspects of these costs: the barriers created by high drug costs and the prior authorization process. The studies respectively examined how the high out-of-pocket costs for oral cancer therapy impact overall survival rates and demonstrated how a successful collaboration between a health system and a commercial payor can streamline the prior authorization process and get patients into treatment more quickly.
Related abstracts:
- Effect of high patient out-of-pocket cost for oral tyrosine kinase inhibitors on survival in EGFR- and ALK-positive stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract 3)
- Collaboration with commercial payor to eliminate prior authorization (Abstract 9).
Two other studies examined different issues related to patient participation in clinical trials. One study investigated the relationship between participation in a clinical trial and overall survival in patients with advanced lung cancer. The second study discovered and explored a discrepancy between providers’ and patients’ perceived barriers to clinical trial participation.
Related abstracts:
- Potential impact of clinical trial participation on survival of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract 137)
- Comparison of attitudes and beliefs about cancer clinical trial enrollment between physicians, research staff, and cancer patients (Abstract 170).
All abstracts are now publicly available at meetinglibrary.asco.org. ■
© 2019. American Society of Clinical Oncology. All rights reserved.
