24 Min.
Dr. Derek Raghavan Has a Remedy to Mitigate Financial Toxicity in Cancer Treatment ASCO Daily News
-
- Medizin
Transcript:
Dr. John Sweetenham: Hello, I'm John Sweetenham, Associate Director of Clinical Affairs at UT Southwestern's Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the guest host of ASCO Daily News Podcast today.
I'm joined by my friend and colleague, Dr. Derek Raghavan, President of the Levine Cancer Institute to discuss a new study that he and his group published in JCO Oncology Practice outlining a novel approach adopted by his institution to address financial toxicity caused by the rising costs of cancer care.
Dr. Raghavan is going to tell us about the creation of a Financial Toxicity Tumor Board, which shows promise as a potential solution to significantly ease the financial burden of cancer treatment on patients and their families (DOI: 10.1200/OP.21.00124). Dr. Raghavan's full disclosures are available on our show notes, and disclosures relating to all episodes of the podcast can be found in our transcripts at asco.org/podcasts. Derek, it's always a pleasure to be speaking with you again on the podcast.
Dr. Derek Raghavan: Hi, John. It's a pleasure to have time with you again.
Dr. John Sweetenham: You know, I've had an opportunity to read the publication in JCO Oncology Practice, and it really is fascinating and a very interesting new approach. We know from many studies that financial toxicity is among the most rapidly growing adverse effects of cancer treatments. And patients report financial distress is a major hurdle to the quality of life. And its association with worse outcomes is now very well documented.
At the Levine Cancer Institute, as your paper describes, you created a Financial Toxicity Tumor Board, which you abbreviate to FTTB, to address this problem. And I wonder if you'd be able to describe a little bit about this tumor board, and perhaps in particular which components of this you feel are really a new approach to addressing the issue of financial toxicity.
Dr. Derek Raghavan: Thanks, John. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's important just to define what we're talking about because there are still people, particularly clinicians, who don't really understand the concept. So, I think it was probably Jonas de Souza, among others, from Mark Ratain's group, who were early in both identifying this as an issue and studying it.
And so, the concept of financial toxicity is really pretty simple. And that is that people are struggling to pay their bills and the bills are going up. With the way the pharmaceutical industry is able to set prices ad libitum, the fact that there's a lot of lobbying that goes on in Washington, and elsewhere, the prices that people have to pay can be really quite extreme.
People that are insured are, perhaps in this domain, particularly at risk because if you have, for instance, a good insurance policy with a 10% copay, and think about the cost of maybe half a million or a million dollars a course of targeted therapies or for CAR T treatment, or whatever, 10% of $500,000 is an awful lot of money for someone to come up with unexpectedly.
So, the whole idea of financial toxicity is something that has emerged with the rising costs, and more particularly, the rising prices of health care. I think the other thing that that's important is while we are seeing this reported more, and you know this from your experience, as to why, patients really protect their financial status almost more than anything else.
They don't like to admit that they're struggling financially. And there will be people who are mortgaging the house, but who don't share with the medical team that they've run out of money, that the health insurance plan isn't working. And so, they're really making choices that are very tough.
If you have no income and no insurance, I'm not implying that it isn't a problem. There are people who will still have bills to pay and have to make choices between buying food and buying their drugs. And in your practice and in mine, we both know that sometimes patients select in favor o
Transcript:
Dr. John Sweetenham: Hello, I'm John Sweetenham, Associate Director of Clinical Affairs at UT Southwestern's Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the guest host of ASCO Daily News Podcast today.
I'm joined by my friend and colleague, Dr. Derek Raghavan, President of the Levine Cancer Institute to discuss a new study that he and his group published in JCO Oncology Practice outlining a novel approach adopted by his institution to address financial toxicity caused by the rising costs of cancer care.
Dr. Raghavan is going to tell us about the creation of a Financial Toxicity Tumor Board, which shows promise as a potential solution to significantly ease the financial burden of cancer treatment on patients and their families (DOI: 10.1200/OP.21.00124). Dr. Raghavan's full disclosures are available on our show notes, and disclosures relating to all episodes of the podcast can be found in our transcripts at asco.org/podcasts. Derek, it's always a pleasure to be speaking with you again on the podcast.
Dr. Derek Raghavan: Hi, John. It's a pleasure to have time with you again.
Dr. John Sweetenham: You know, I've had an opportunity to read the publication in JCO Oncology Practice, and it really is fascinating and a very interesting new approach. We know from many studies that financial toxicity is among the most rapidly growing adverse effects of cancer treatments. And patients report financial distress is a major hurdle to the quality of life. And its association with worse outcomes is now very well documented.
At the Levine Cancer Institute, as your paper describes, you created a Financial Toxicity Tumor Board, which you abbreviate to FTTB, to address this problem. And I wonder if you'd be able to describe a little bit about this tumor board, and perhaps in particular which components of this you feel are really a new approach to addressing the issue of financial toxicity.
Dr. Derek Raghavan: Thanks, John. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's important just to define what we're talking about because there are still people, particularly clinicians, who don't really understand the concept. So, I think it was probably Jonas de Souza, among others, from Mark Ratain's group, who were early in both identifying this as an issue and studying it.
And so, the concept of financial toxicity is really pretty simple. And that is that people are struggling to pay their bills and the bills are going up. With the way the pharmaceutical industry is able to set prices ad libitum, the fact that there's a lot of lobbying that goes on in Washington, and elsewhere, the prices that people have to pay can be really quite extreme.
People that are insured are, perhaps in this domain, particularly at risk because if you have, for instance, a good insurance policy with a 10% copay, and think about the cost of maybe half a million or a million dollars a course of targeted therapies or for CAR T treatment, or whatever, 10% of $500,000 is an awful lot of money for someone to come up with unexpectedly.
So, the whole idea of financial toxicity is something that has emerged with the rising costs, and more particularly, the rising prices of health care. I think the other thing that that's important is while we are seeing this reported more, and you know this from your experience, as to why, patients really protect their financial status almost more than anything else.
They don't like to admit that they're struggling financially. And there will be people who are mortgaging the house, but who don't share with the medical team that they've run out of money, that the health insurance plan isn't working. And so, they're really making choices that are very tough.
If you have no income and no insurance, I'm not implying that it isn't a problem. There are people who will still have bills to pay and have to make choices between buying food and buying their drugs. And in your practice and in mine, we both know that sometimes patients select in favor o
24 Min.