Grey Horizon postings will resume week of July 2, 2024

 To all Grey Horizon readers, 

Thank you for your continued support of this blog.  Postings will resume the week of week of July 2, 2024.  

Cost of care discussions rarely documented for patients with advanced cancer

 A recently completed population study by researchers at the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute shows "cost discussions were infrequently documented in medical records" of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma.  According to lead study author Dr. Robin Yabroff, scientific vice president of health services research at the American Cancer Society, cost discussions were noted in only 20.3% of non-small cell lung cancer and 24% of melanoma patients.  

To read more about this study, click here. 

Study mentioned: Yabroff KR, Mittu K, Halpern MT. Cost-of-care discussions for individuals with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma: Findings from a large, population-based pilot study. Cancer. 2024 Jun 13. doi: 10.1002/cncr.35380. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38869706.

Neoadjuvant nivolumab and ipilimumab leads to a pathological response in a high proportion of patients with locally advanced dMMR colon cancer

 Results of NICHE-2, "a large phase II study involving patients with locally advanced mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR) colon cancers..." was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. As mentioned by the study authors, staging of dMMR colon cancer presents a number of challenges, due to microsatellite instability associated with "false positive enlarged lymph nodes owing to immune infiltration."  

To read more about the NICHE-2 study, click here. 

Source mentioned: 

• Chalabi M, Verschoor YL, Batista Tan P, et al. Neoadjuvant Immunotherapy in Locally Advanced Mismatch Repair–Deficient Colon Cancer. N Engl J Med 2024;390:1949-1958.
• Cercek A. Neoadjuvant Treatment of Mismatch Repair–Deficient Colon Cancer — Clinically Meaningful? N Engl J Med 2024;390:2024-2025.

NIH scientists develop AI tool to predict how cancer patients will respond to immunotherapy

 A proof-of-concept study developed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute utilizes artificial intelligence from a blood test "to predict whether someone's cancer will respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors." The study, conducted on 2881 patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors across 18 solid cancer types, provided accurate predictions on likely response to immune checkpoint inhibitor, as well as lifespan, overall survival, and cancer reoccurrence. 

To read more about the study, click here. 

Study mentioned: 

1. Chang T, Cao Y, Sfreddo HJ, et al. LORIS robustly predicts patient outcomes with immune checkpoint blockade therapy using common clinical, pathologic and genomic featuresExit Disclaimer. Nature Cancer. June 3, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s43018-024-00772-7.