A study evaluating cancer treatment regimens prescribed to patients across the country has come away with the conclusion that billions are wasted on what are referred to as nonevidence-based cancer treatments.
Philadelphia-based eviti conducted the three-year study with the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, according to a company statement. It found that of 2,544 oncology patients included in the study from 2009 to 2012, more than 28 percent were given treatments that deviated from evidence-based standards or could not be medically justified.
The study findings were represented in a poster at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago where the results were presented this week. The lead author of the study, Dr. Arlene Forastiere, the senior vice president for medical affairs at eviti and a medical oncologist, gave MedCity News a few examples of some of the unwarranted treatments referred to in the study.
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“One of the things we see a lot of is combinations of chemotherapy and other drugs — it’s more costly, the drug interactions can cause side effects and lead to secondary problems.” Forastiere added that white blood cell growth factor treatments that don’t adhere to ASCO guidelines pops up all the time. Another example is inappropriate treatment in patients with cancer at a stage in which it won’t be cured.
More than 1.6 million people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society. If you calculate that one in four is prescribed unwarranted treatment, that adds up to billions in unnecessary costs each year, Forastiere said.
Last year, eviti gave free access to its library of 1,200 evidence-based cancer treatment regimens for more than 120 cancer types derived from government and industry data available to physicians free of charge. Forastiere estimated that half of oncology practices in the U.S. use the library.
