In January 2021, two of us wrote in these pages about our field’s pressing need to pivot away from identifying and deploying the maximum tolerated dose (MTD) when it comes to targeted oncology therapies.1 We argued that, instead, one should be looking for the “optimal dose”—the dose that best...
The vast majority of drugs used outside of oncology are evaluated in randomized dose-ranging trials to optimize the therapeutic index prior to the pivotal phase III trial. No one would think of dosing a statin or an antibiotic at the highest dose patients could tolerate, especially if that dose...
Three years ago, former Chief Executive Officer of ASCO, Allen S. Lichter, MD, Laurence H. Baker, DO, Professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor; Leonard Saltz, MD, a gastrointestinal oncologist at Memorial Sloan...
IT IS TIME for value-based prescribing—the reduction of prescribing costs using basic pharmacologic principles—to be tested and deployed in oncology. The savings are real and there for the taking. If you are concerned about the high costs in cancer care, here is a chance to get maximum value for...