Background: Financial costs from cancer treatment are increasingly recognized, but what has historically been underrecognized is the time cost of therapy. We sought to estimate the time burden of anti-cancer drugs approved based on comparisons to best supportive care (BSC), with the assumption that without this drug, a patient could have been treated with observation, home palliative care or hospice services, with minimal time seeking medical care.
Methods: We searched all FDA approvals (2009 - March 2022) for randomized trials that used BSC as a treatment option for an anti-tumor drug in the metastatic setting and abstracted data on treatment related activities. We then estimated time spent on these activities using previously calculated times.
Results: Of the 13 drugs tested against BSC, nine studies demonstrated an improvement in median OS (median 2.1 months). The median monthly time spent for patients in the intervention arm of BSC trials was 15.8 h.
Conclusion: Time is a valuable resource for people who have cancer, but especially for patients who may have few to no remaining treatment options, and yet, we found that patients can spend up to 16 h in anti-cancer drug related activities per month.
Policy Summary: Because survival outcomes are variable for patients being treated in later lines of therapy, time resources are a valuable consideration in the treatment plan.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcpo.2022.100363 | DOI Listing |
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Affordable and clean energy, eliminating poverty, and reducing inequality are important goals of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper examines the role of access to clean cooking fuels in promoting income growth and reducing income inequality. Using data from Chinese households, we show that a 10% increase in the adoption of clean cooking fuels would result in an increase in total annual household income of US$37 billion nationwide.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neurosurg
January 2025
8Department of Healthcare Administration and Medical Informatics, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung.
Objective: This study focuses on epidermal growth factor receptor-mutated lung adenocarcinoma, known for frequent brain metastasis. It aimed to compare the clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness of combining Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) (GKRS+TKI group) versus TKIs alone (TKI group) for the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed brain metastasis in this condition.
Methods: Study characteristics of the two groups were matched using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW).
PLoS One
January 2025
Academy for Health Equity, Prevention and Wellbeing (AHEPW) School of Health Sciences, Bangor University, Gwynedd, United Kingdom.
Background And Objective: Personal wheelchair budgets (PWBs) are offered to everyone in England eligible for a wheelchair provided through the National Health Service (NHS) to support their choice of equipment. The WATCh (Wheelchair outcomes Assessment Tool for Children) and related WATCh-Ad for adults are patient-centred outcome measures (PCOMs) developed to help individual users express their main outcome needs when obtaining a wheelchair and rate their satisfaction with subsequent outcomes after receiving their equipment. Use was explored in a real-world setting, aiming to produce guidance for use alongside the PWB process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
January 2025
Worldwide Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Bristol Myers Squibb, Princeton, NJ, United States of America.
Background: Belatacept is approved for the prophylaxis of organ rejection in Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-seropositive kidney transplant recipients and is associated with a risk of post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD).
Methods: Data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network were used to examine patterns of belatacept use, describe patient characteristics, and estimate risk of PTLD in EBV-seropositive, kidney-only transplant recipients receiving belatacept- or calcineurin inhibitor (CNI)-based immunosuppression as part of US Food and Drug Administration-mandated safety monitoring.
Results: During the study period (June 15, 2011-June 14, 2016), 94.
J Healthc Manag
January 2025
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, DC.
Goal: Burnout, decreased professional fulfillment, and resultant attrition across the medical professions are increasingly recognized as threats to sustainable and cost-effective healthcare delivery. While the skill level of leaders as perceived by their direct reports has been correlated with rates of burnout and fulfillment, no studies, to our knowledge, have directly evaluated whether intervention via leadership training impacts burnout and fulfillment among direct reports. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a leadership training intervention on direct reports' perceptions of the leadership skills of supervising residents and subsequently on the well-being of the direct reports.
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