Endocrine Cancer

More than one third of patients with cancer visited an emergency department (ED) in the 90 days before their diagnosis, according to a study of medical records from Ontario, Canada.

Researchers examined Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) data that had been gathered from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2021. The study focused on patients aged 18 years or older with confirmed primary cancer diagnoses.

Factors associated with an increased likelihood of an ED visit ahead of diagnosis included having certain cancers, living in rural areas, and having less access to primary care, according to study author Keerat Grewal, MD, an emergency physician and clinician scientist at the Schwartz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute at Sinai Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and coauthors.

“The ED is a distressing environment for patients to receive a possible cancer diagnosis,” the authors wrote. “Moreover, it is frequently ill equipped to provide ongoing continuity of care, which can lead patients down a poorly defined diagnostic pathway before receiving a confirmed diagnosis based on tissue and a subsequent treatment plan.”

The findings were published online on November 4 in CMAJ).
 

Neurologic Cancers Prominent

In an interview, Grewal said in an interview that the study reflects her desire as an emergency room physician to understand why so many patients with cancer get the initial reports about their disease from clinicians whom they often have just met for the first time.

Among patients with an ED visit before cancer diagnosis, 51.4% were admitted to hospital from the most recent visit.

Compared with patients with a family physician on whom they could rely for routine care, those who had no outpatient visits (odds ratio [OR], 2.09) or fewer than three outpatient visits (OR, 1.41) in the 6-30 months before cancer diagnosis were more likely to have an ED visit before their cancer diagnosis.

Other factors associated with increased odds of ED use before cancer diagnosis included rurality (OR, 1.15), residence in northern Ontario (northeast region: OR, 1.14 and northwest region: OR, 1.27 vs Toronto region), and living in the most marginalized areas (material resource deprivation: OR, 1.37 and housing stability: OR, 1.09 vs least marginalized area).

The researchers also found that patients with certain cancers were more likely to have sought care in the ED. They compared these cancers with breast cancer, which is often detected through screening.

“Patients with neurologic cancers had extremely high odds of ED use before cancer diagnosis,” the authors wrote. “This is likely because of the emergent nature of presentation, with acute neurologic symptoms such as weakness, confusion, or seizures, which require urgent assessment.” On the other hand, pancreatic, liver, or thoracic cancer can trigger nonspecific symptoms that may be ignored until they reach a crisis level that prompts an ED visit.

The limitations of the study included its inability to identify cancer-related ED visits and its narrow focus on patients in Ontario, according to the researchers. But the use of the ICES databases also allowed researchers access to a broader pool of data than are available in many other cases.

The findings in the new paper echo those of previous research, the authors noted. Research in the United Kingdom found that 24%-31% of cancer diagnoses involved the ED. In addition, a study of people enrolled in the US Medicare program, which serves patients aged 65 years or older, found that 23% were seen in the ED in the 30 days before diagnosis.
 

‘Unpacking the Data’

The current findings also are consistent with those of an International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership study that was published in 2022 in The Lancet Oncology, said Erika Nicholson, MHS, vice president of cancer systems and innovation at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. The latter study analyzed cancer registration and linked hospital admissions data from 14 jurisdictions in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

“We see similar trends in terms of people visiting EDs and being diagnosed through EDs internationally,” Nicholson said. “We’re working with partners to put in place different strategies to address the challenges” that this phenomenon presents in terms of improving screening and follow-up care.

“Cancer is not one disease, but many diseases,” she said. “They present differently. We’re focused on really unpacking the data and understanding them.”

All this research highlights the need for more services and personnel to address cancer, including people who are trained to help patients cope after getting concerning news through emergency care, she said.

“That means having a system that fully supports you and helps you navigate through that diagnostic process,” Nicholson said. Addressing the added challenges for patients who don’t have secure housing is a special need, she added.

This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Grewal reported receiving grants from CIHR and the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians. Nicholson reported no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

More than one third of patients with cancer visited an emergency department (ED) in the 90 days before their diagnosis, according to a study of medical records from Ontario, Canada.

Researchers examined Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) data that had been gathered from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2021. The study focused on patients aged 18 years or older with confirmed primary cancer diagnoses.

Factors associated with an increased likelihood of an ED visit ahead of diagnosis included having certain cancers, living in rural areas, and having less access to primary care, according to study author Keerat Grewal, MD, an emergency physician and clinician scientist at the Schwartz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute at Sinai Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and coauthors.

“The ED is a distressing environment for patients to receive a possible cancer diagnosis,” the authors wrote. “Moreover, it is frequently ill equipped to provide ongoing continuity of care, which can lead patients down a poorly defined diagnostic pathway before receiving a confirmed diagnosis based on tissue and a subsequent treatment plan.”

The findings were published online on November 4 in CMAJ).
 

Neurologic Cancers Prominent

In an interview, Grewal said in an interview that the study reflects her desire as an emergency room physician to understand why so many patients with cancer get the initial reports about their disease from clinicians whom they often have just met for the first time.

Among patients with an ED visit before cancer diagnosis, 51.4% were admitted to hospital from the most recent visit.

Compared with patients with a family physician on whom they could rely for routine care, those who had no outpatient visits (odds ratio [OR], 2.09) or fewer than three outpatient visits (OR, 1.41) in the 6-30 months before cancer diagnosis were more likely to have an ED visit before their cancer diagnosis.

Other factors associated with increased odds of ED use before cancer diagnosis included rurality (OR, 1.15), residence in northern Ontario (northeast region: OR, 1.14 and northwest region: OR, 1.27 vs Toronto region), and living in the most marginalized areas (material resource deprivation: OR, 1.37 and housing stability: OR, 1.09 vs least marginalized area).

The researchers also found that patients with certain cancers were more likely to have sought care in the ED. They compared these cancers with breast cancer, which is often detected through screening.

“Patients with neurologic cancers had extremely high odds of ED use before cancer diagnosis,” the authors wrote. “This is likely because of the emergent nature of presentation, with acute neurologic symptoms such as weakness, confusion, or seizures, which require urgent assessment.” On the other hand, pancreatic, liver, or thoracic cancer can trigger nonspecific symptoms that may be ignored until they reach a crisis level that prompts an ED visit.

The limitations of the study included its inability to identify cancer-related ED visits and its narrow focus on patients in Ontario, according to the researchers. But the use of the ICES databases also allowed researchers access to a broader pool of data than are available in many other cases.

The findings in the new paper echo those of previous research, the authors noted. Research in the United Kingdom found that 24%-31% of cancer diagnoses involved the ED. In addition, a study of people enrolled in the US Medicare program, which serves patients aged 65 years or older, found that 23% were seen in the ED in the 30 days before diagnosis.
 

‘Unpacking the Data’

The current findings also are consistent with those of an International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership study that was published in 2022 in The Lancet Oncology, said Erika Nicholson, MHS, vice president of cancer systems and innovation at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. The latter study analyzed cancer registration and linked hospital admissions data from 14 jurisdictions in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

“We see similar trends in terms of people visiting EDs and being diagnosed through EDs internationally,” Nicholson said. “We’re working with partners to put in place different strategies to address the challenges” that this phenomenon presents in terms of improving screening and follow-up care.

“Cancer is not one disease, but many diseases,” she said. “They present differently. We’re focused on really unpacking the data and understanding them.”

All this research highlights the need for more services and personnel to address cancer, including people who are trained to help patients cope after getting concerning news through emergency care, she said.

“That means having a system that fully supports you and helps you navigate through that diagnostic process,” Nicholson said. Addressing the added challenges for patients who don’t have secure housing is a special need, she added.

This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Grewal reported receiving grants from CIHR and the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians. Nicholson reported no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

More than one third of patients with cancer visited an emergency department (ED) in the 90 days before their diagnosis, according to a study of medical records from Ontario, Canada.

Researchers examined Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) data that had been gathered from January 1, 2014, to December 31, 2021. The study focused on patients aged 18 years or older with confirmed primary cancer diagnoses.

Factors associated with an increased likelihood of an ED visit ahead of diagnosis included having certain cancers, living in rural areas, and having less access to primary care, according to study author Keerat Grewal, MD, an emergency physician and clinician scientist at the Schwartz/Reisman Emergency Medicine Institute at Sinai Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and coauthors.

“The ED is a distressing environment for patients to receive a possible cancer diagnosis,” the authors wrote. “Moreover, it is frequently ill equipped to provide ongoing continuity of care, which can lead patients down a poorly defined diagnostic pathway before receiving a confirmed diagnosis based on tissue and a subsequent treatment plan.”

The findings were published online on November 4 in CMAJ).
 

Neurologic Cancers Prominent

In an interview, Grewal said in an interview that the study reflects her desire as an emergency room physician to understand why so many patients with cancer get the initial reports about their disease from clinicians whom they often have just met for the first time.

Among patients with an ED visit before cancer diagnosis, 51.4% were admitted to hospital from the most recent visit.

Compared with patients with a family physician on whom they could rely for routine care, those who had no outpatient visits (odds ratio [OR], 2.09) or fewer than three outpatient visits (OR, 1.41) in the 6-30 months before cancer diagnosis were more likely to have an ED visit before their cancer diagnosis.

Other factors associated with increased odds of ED use before cancer diagnosis included rurality (OR, 1.15), residence in northern Ontario (northeast region: OR, 1.14 and northwest region: OR, 1.27 vs Toronto region), and living in the most marginalized areas (material resource deprivation: OR, 1.37 and housing stability: OR, 1.09 vs least marginalized area).

The researchers also found that patients with certain cancers were more likely to have sought care in the ED. They compared these cancers with breast cancer, which is often detected through screening.

“Patients with neurologic cancers had extremely high odds of ED use before cancer diagnosis,” the authors wrote. “This is likely because of the emergent nature of presentation, with acute neurologic symptoms such as weakness, confusion, or seizures, which require urgent assessment.” On the other hand, pancreatic, liver, or thoracic cancer can trigger nonspecific symptoms that may be ignored until they reach a crisis level that prompts an ED visit.

The limitations of the study included its inability to identify cancer-related ED visits and its narrow focus on patients in Ontario, according to the researchers. But the use of the ICES databases also allowed researchers access to a broader pool of data than are available in many other cases.

The findings in the new paper echo those of previous research, the authors noted. Research in the United Kingdom found that 24%-31% of cancer diagnoses involved the ED. In addition, a study of people enrolled in the US Medicare program, which serves patients aged 65 years or older, found that 23% were seen in the ED in the 30 days before diagnosis.
 

‘Unpacking the Data’

The current findings also are consistent with those of an International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership study that was published in 2022 in The Lancet Oncology, said Erika Nicholson, MHS, vice president of cancer systems and innovation at the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. The latter study analyzed cancer registration and linked hospital admissions data from 14 jurisdictions in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

“We see similar trends in terms of people visiting EDs and being diagnosed through EDs internationally,” Nicholson said. “We’re working with partners to put in place different strategies to address the challenges” that this phenomenon presents in terms of improving screening and follow-up care.

“Cancer is not one disease, but many diseases,” she said. “They present differently. We’re focused on really unpacking the data and understanding them.”

All this research highlights the need for more services and personnel to address cancer, including people who are trained to help patients cope after getting concerning news through emergency care, she said.

“That means having a system that fully supports you and helps you navigate through that diagnostic process,” Nicholson said. Addressing the added challenges for patients who don’t have secure housing is a special need, she added.

This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Grewal reported receiving grants from CIHR and the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians. Nicholson reported no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Higher plasma levels of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are associated with a lower incidence of cancer. However, omega-3 fatty acids are linked to an increased risk for prostate cancer, specifically.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers looked for associations of plasma omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) with the incidence of cancer overall and 19 site-specific cancers in the large population-based prospective UK Biobank cohort.
• They included 253,138 participants aged 37-73 years who were followed for an average of 12.9 years, with 29,838 diagnosed with cancer.
• Plasma levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids were measured using nuclear magnetic resonance and expressed as percentages of total fatty acids.
• Participants with cancer diagnoses at baseline, those who withdrew from the study, and those with missing data on plasma PUFAs were excluded.
• The study adjusted for multiple covariates, including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, lifestyle behaviors, and family history of diseases.

TAKEAWAY:

• Higher plasma levels of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids were associated with a 2% and 1% reduction in overall cancer risk per SD increase, respectively (P = .001 and P = .03).
• Omega-6 fatty acids were inversely associated with 14 site-specific cancers, whereas omega-3 fatty acids were inversely associated with five site-specific cancers.
• Prostate cancer was positively associated with omega-3 fatty acids, with a 3% increased risk per SD increase (P = .049).
• A higher omega-6/omega-3 ratio was associated with an increased risk for overall cancer, and three site-specific cancers showed positive associations with the ratio. “Each standard deviation increase, corresponding to a 13.13 increase in the omega ratio, was associated with a 2% increase in the risk of rectum cancer,” for example, the authors wrote.

IN PRACTICE:

“Overall, our findings provide support for possible small net protective roles of omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs in the development of new cancer incidence. Our study also suggests that the usage of circulating blood biomarkers captures different aspects of dietary intake, reduces measurement errors, and thus enhances statistical power. The differential effects of omega-6% and omega-3% in age and sex subgroups warrant future investigation,” wrote the authors of the study.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Yuchen Zhang of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. It was published online in the International Journal of Cancer.

LIMITATIONS:

The study’s potential for selective bias persists due to the participant sample skewing heavily toward European ancestry and White ethnicity. The number of events was small for some specific cancer sites, which may have limited the statistical power. The study focused on total omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs, with only two individual fatty acids measured. Future studies are needed to examine the roles of other individual PUFAs and specific genetic variants. 

DISCLOSURES:

This study was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. No relevant conflicts of interest were disclosed by the authors.
 

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Higher plasma levels of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are associated with a lower incidence of cancer. However, omega-3 fatty acids are linked to an increased risk for prostate cancer, specifically.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers looked for associations of plasma omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) with the incidence of cancer overall and 19 site-specific cancers in the large population-based prospective UK Biobank cohort.
• They included 253,138 participants aged 37-73 years who were followed for an average of 12.9 years, with 29,838 diagnosed with cancer.
• Plasma levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids were measured using nuclear magnetic resonance and expressed as percentages of total fatty acids.
• Participants with cancer diagnoses at baseline, those who withdrew from the study, and those with missing data on plasma PUFAs were excluded.
• The study adjusted for multiple covariates, including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, lifestyle behaviors, and family history of diseases.

TAKEAWAY:

• Higher plasma levels of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids were associated with a 2% and 1% reduction in overall cancer risk per SD increase, respectively (P = .001 and P = .03).
• Omega-6 fatty acids were inversely associated with 14 site-specific cancers, whereas omega-3 fatty acids were inversely associated with five site-specific cancers.
• Prostate cancer was positively associated with omega-3 fatty acids, with a 3% increased risk per SD increase (P = .049).
• A higher omega-6/omega-3 ratio was associated with an increased risk for overall cancer, and three site-specific cancers showed positive associations with the ratio. “Each standard deviation increase, corresponding to a 13.13 increase in the omega ratio, was associated with a 2% increase in the risk of rectum cancer,” for example, the authors wrote.

IN PRACTICE:

“Overall, our findings provide support for possible small net protective roles of omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs in the development of new cancer incidence. Our study also suggests that the usage of circulating blood biomarkers captures different aspects of dietary intake, reduces measurement errors, and thus enhances statistical power. The differential effects of omega-6% and omega-3% in age and sex subgroups warrant future investigation,” wrote the authors of the study.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Yuchen Zhang of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. It was published online in the International Journal of Cancer.

LIMITATIONS:

The study’s potential for selective bias persists due to the participant sample skewing heavily toward European ancestry and White ethnicity. The number of events was small for some specific cancer sites, which may have limited the statistical power. The study focused on total omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs, with only two individual fatty acids measured. Future studies are needed to examine the roles of other individual PUFAs and specific genetic variants. 

DISCLOSURES:

This study was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. No relevant conflicts of interest were disclosed by the authors.
 

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Higher plasma levels of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are associated with a lower incidence of cancer. However, omega-3 fatty acids are linked to an increased risk for prostate cancer, specifically.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers looked for associations of plasma omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) with the incidence of cancer overall and 19 site-specific cancers in the large population-based prospective UK Biobank cohort.
• They included 253,138 participants aged 37-73 years who were followed for an average of 12.9 years, with 29,838 diagnosed with cancer.
• Plasma levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids were measured using nuclear magnetic resonance and expressed as percentages of total fatty acids.
• Participants with cancer diagnoses at baseline, those who withdrew from the study, and those with missing data on plasma PUFAs were excluded.
• The study adjusted for multiple covariates, including age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, lifestyle behaviors, and family history of diseases.

TAKEAWAY:

• Higher plasma levels of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids were associated with a 2% and 1% reduction in overall cancer risk per SD increase, respectively (P = .001 and P = .03).
• Omega-6 fatty acids were inversely associated with 14 site-specific cancers, whereas omega-3 fatty acids were inversely associated with five site-specific cancers.
• Prostate cancer was positively associated with omega-3 fatty acids, with a 3% increased risk per SD increase (P = .049).
• A higher omega-6/omega-3 ratio was associated with an increased risk for overall cancer, and three site-specific cancers showed positive associations with the ratio. “Each standard deviation increase, corresponding to a 13.13 increase in the omega ratio, was associated with a 2% increase in the risk of rectum cancer,” for example, the authors wrote.

IN PRACTICE:

“Overall, our findings provide support for possible small net protective roles of omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs in the development of new cancer incidence. Our study also suggests that the usage of circulating blood biomarkers captures different aspects of dietary intake, reduces measurement errors, and thus enhances statistical power. The differential effects of omega-6% and omega-3% in age and sex subgroups warrant future investigation,” wrote the authors of the study.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Yuchen Zhang of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. It was published online in the International Journal of Cancer.

LIMITATIONS:

The study’s potential for selective bias persists due to the participant sample skewing heavily toward European ancestry and White ethnicity. The number of events was small for some specific cancer sites, which may have limited the statistical power. The study focused on total omega-3 and omega-6 PUFAs, with only two individual fatty acids measured. Future studies are needed to examine the roles of other individual PUFAs and specific genetic variants. 

DISCLOSURES:

This study was supported by grants from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. No relevant conflicts of interest were disclosed by the authors.
 

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Efforts to curb overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer have made a difference in the United States and South Korea, but these countries still have high rates of excess treatment of indolent lesions, according to a recently published global study.

The proportion of thyroid cancer cases attributable to overdiagnosis globally was higher in women (78%) than in men (68%), with this rate varying substantially across countries, wrote Mengmeng Li, PhD, of the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China, and coauthors in an October paper in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Overdiagnosis refers to the diagnosis of lesions that would not cause symptoms and that would not progress, if left alone.

Increased testing for thyroid cancer, fueled in large part by the expansion of imaging technologies and progressively more intense and disorganized scrutiny of the thyroid, led many people to be treated for often indolent lesions, exposing them to potential side effects as well as financial and emotional distress.

Li and coauthors estimate that more than 1.7 million people might have been overdiagnosed between 2013 and 2017 in 63 countries.

“Overdiagnosis clearly emerged in some high-resource countries with private-based health systems in which access to healthcare overrules regulatory controls (eg, in the USA) and in some high-quality public health systems with easy and broad access to thyroid gland diagnostic examinations (eg, in Canada),” Li and coauthors wrote. “Conversely, thyroid cancer is less commonly diagnosed in those countries in which access to diagnosis is guided by strong regulatory rules (eg, in Nordic countries).”

Their study drew from almost 40 years of research, including the latest available data from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC’s) Global Cancer Observatory. Li and coauthors examined patterns in the time trends of thyroid cancer, mortality data, and trends in diagnosis of thyroid cancer before testing became common in many nations.

This approach is needed in estimating overdiagnosis, where it’s not possible to see what’s happening on a case-by-case level, Salvatore Vaccarella, PhD, a scientist at IARC’s Cancer Surveillance Branch, said in an interview.

Researchers can’t tell whether an individual’s detected early-stage cancers would have remained indolent for years or eventually would have put their life at risk, he said. Instead, the patterns emerge through larger studies of the reported cases of cancer like thyroid tumors and then looking at separate datasets on mortality.

“We can only see that as a big phenomenon when we look at population-based data,” Vaccarella said.
 

Persisting Problem

Recognition of the harms of overdiagnosis has resulted in some reduction of the incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States, Li and coauthors wrote. After adjusting for age, incidence has fallen from 19 per 100,000 women in 2013 to 16 per 100,000 women in 2017. The proportion of thyroid cancer attributed to overdiagnosis has dropped from 76% to 68% in the country.

The paper adds to the evidence suggesting that the rise in screening has not changed mortality rates for thyroid cancer. For example, Li and coauthors reported seeing “a small decrease in thyroid cancer mortality rates over time in some European countries, but this decline (less than 1 per 100,000 women) is marginal compared with the increases in incidence (reaching around 100 per 100,000 women).”

“Moreover, previous data show that the downward mortality trends had begun before the wide use of ultrasonography for early detection and that period and birth cohort effects have been declining, probably due to treatment advances and reduced prevalence of risk factors, such as the reduction in iodine deficiency,” they wrote.

In an interview, Amanda Davis, MD, of AnMed, a nonprofit health system based in Anderson, South Carolina, said the new paper from Li and Vaccarella provides further evidence for a cautious approach to thyroid nodules given concerns about overdiagnosis.

If early detection of cancer via discovery of thyroid nodules actually helped patients, mortality rates would have dropped with expansion of screening and the resulting diagnoses, said Davis, who is an associate program director at AnMed’s family medicine residency program and affiliate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.

In many cases, people learn they have thyroid lesions after being tested for other conditions such as ultrasound done on carotid arteries to check for stroke risk. The most common form of thyroid cancer is the papillary form. Papillary thyroid cancer tends to be slow growing, carries a low risk for distant metastasis, and in many cases poses little risk. Some small (< 1 cm) papillary thyroid cancers can be monitored with active surveillance as opposed to thyroid lobectomy.

“So just finding more nodules incidentally or through screening ultrasound and even finding more papillary cancers via these methods does not make people healthier or decrease mortality,” Davis said.

“So just finding more things and even finding more papillary cancers does not increase our ability to treat people and keep them alive longer,” Davis said.

The 5-year survival rate for thyroid cancer overall is 98.1% and varies from 99.9% for localized disease to 55.3% for distant disease, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said in a 2017 publication in JAMA. The task force that year gave a “D” rating on screening of asymptomatic people for thyroid cancer. That means there’s moderate certainty that screening for thyroid cancer in asymptomatic persons results in harms that outweigh the benefits. The decision to give this “D” rating meant this screening is not recommended. That’s still the panel’s view.

“You can think of it as a “D” for ‘don’t screen for thyroid cancer,’ ” in people who present no symptoms of this illness, John Wong, MD, the vice chair of the USPSTF, said in an interview.

In primary care, the challenge is assessing thyroid nodules detected when people undergo testing for another reason, such as an ultrasound of the carotid artery to check for stroke risk.

Thyroid nodules can be detected by ultrasonography in up to 68% of the general population, reported a study in American Family Physician. Nodules with suspicious features or ≥ 1 cm require fine needle aspiration. The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology can be used to classify samples, with molecular testing applied to guide treatment when fine needle aspiration yields an indeterminate result.
 

New Thinking on Thyroid Cancer

There’s been a shift in recent years in the approach to how physicians should proceed if certain kinds of thyroid cancer are detected, Cari M. Kitahara, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute noted in a comment accompanying the Li paper.

“Clinicians need to be judicious in the use of thyroid ultrasonography, the diagnostic follow-up of incidentally detected thyroid nodules, and determining the optimal course of treatment,” Kitahara wrote. “For low-risk and incidentally detected tumors, strong consideration should be given to less intensive treatment options (eg, lobectomy, delayed treatment, and active surveillance).”

The American Thyroid Association guidelines encourage de-escalation of treatment for low-risk papillary thyroid carcinoma up to 4 cm.

Physicians often need to make clear to patients how a diagnosis of low-risk papillary thyroid cancer differs from other oncology diagnoses, R. Michael Tuttle, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, said in an interview.

“I’ll frequently say that everything you’ve ever learned about cancer, you need to forget,” Tuttle said.

Some patients will mistakenly think any cancer diagnosis is a likely death sentence, meaning they should rush to get aggressive treatment. Tuttle has been a leader for many years in efforts in advancing active surveillance as an option for certain people with low-risk thyroid cancer.

“I often start my consultation by saying: ‘We’re going to choose between two right answers here. One right answer is watching right. One right answer is going to surgery,’ ” Tuttle said.

Patients with low-risk thyroid cancer tend to fall into two camps, with maximalists likely to seek quick treatment and minimalists more inclined for surveillance if that’s an option for them, Tuttle said. As opinions have shifted within the medical community about approaches to low-risk thyroid cancer, there’s also been some growing awareness among the public about thyroid overdiagnosis.

“Ten or 15 years ago, people thought we were crazy” to consider active surveillance as an option for low-risk thyroid cancers,” Tuttle said. “Now we have swung, at least in some of the public opinion, to this recognition that every little speck of cancer doesn’t need to be immediately taken out of your body.”

Some patients express regret about having learned that they have low-risk thyroid cancer, Tuttle said.

“Over the last 5 years, it’s not uncommon for patients to ask me, ‘Is this one of those that needs to be treated now, or is this one of those that we wish we would have never found?’ Or people will say, ‘My doctor talked me into an ultrasound, I didn’t want it’ or ‘I had a car wreck, and I found this nodule and I wished I had never found it.’ ”

This study from Li and coauthors was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, the Young Talents Program of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, the Italian Association for Cancer Research, and the Italian Ministry of Health. Davis and Tuttle had no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Efforts to curb overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer have made a difference in the United States and South Korea, but these countries still have high rates of excess treatment of indolent lesions, according to a recently published global study.

The proportion of thyroid cancer cases attributable to overdiagnosis globally was higher in women (78%) than in men (68%), with this rate varying substantially across countries, wrote Mengmeng Li, PhD, of the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China, and coauthors in an October paper in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Overdiagnosis refers to the diagnosis of lesions that would not cause symptoms and that would not progress, if left alone.

Increased testing for thyroid cancer, fueled in large part by the expansion of imaging technologies and progressively more intense and disorganized scrutiny of the thyroid, led many people to be treated for often indolent lesions, exposing them to potential side effects as well as financial and emotional distress.

Li and coauthors estimate that more than 1.7 million people might have been overdiagnosed between 2013 and 2017 in 63 countries.

“Overdiagnosis clearly emerged in some high-resource countries with private-based health systems in which access to healthcare overrules regulatory controls (eg, in the USA) and in some high-quality public health systems with easy and broad access to thyroid gland diagnostic examinations (eg, in Canada),” Li and coauthors wrote. “Conversely, thyroid cancer is less commonly diagnosed in those countries in which access to diagnosis is guided by strong regulatory rules (eg, in Nordic countries).”

Their study drew from almost 40 years of research, including the latest available data from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC’s) Global Cancer Observatory. Li and coauthors examined patterns in the time trends of thyroid cancer, mortality data, and trends in diagnosis of thyroid cancer before testing became common in many nations.

This approach is needed in estimating overdiagnosis, where it’s not possible to see what’s happening on a case-by-case level, Salvatore Vaccarella, PhD, a scientist at IARC’s Cancer Surveillance Branch, said in an interview.

Researchers can’t tell whether an individual’s detected early-stage cancers would have remained indolent for years or eventually would have put their life at risk, he said. Instead, the patterns emerge through larger studies of the reported cases of cancer like thyroid tumors and then looking at separate datasets on mortality.

“We can only see that as a big phenomenon when we look at population-based data,” Vaccarella said.
 

Persisting Problem

Recognition of the harms of overdiagnosis has resulted in some reduction of the incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States, Li and coauthors wrote. After adjusting for age, incidence has fallen from 19 per 100,000 women in 2013 to 16 per 100,000 women in 2017. The proportion of thyroid cancer attributed to overdiagnosis has dropped from 76% to 68% in the country.

The paper adds to the evidence suggesting that the rise in screening has not changed mortality rates for thyroid cancer. For example, Li and coauthors reported seeing “a small decrease in thyroid cancer mortality rates over time in some European countries, but this decline (less than 1 per 100,000 women) is marginal compared with the increases in incidence (reaching around 100 per 100,000 women).”

“Moreover, previous data show that the downward mortality trends had begun before the wide use of ultrasonography for early detection and that period and birth cohort effects have been declining, probably due to treatment advances and reduced prevalence of risk factors, such as the reduction in iodine deficiency,” they wrote.

In an interview, Amanda Davis, MD, of AnMed, a nonprofit health system based in Anderson, South Carolina, said the new paper from Li and Vaccarella provides further evidence for a cautious approach to thyroid nodules given concerns about overdiagnosis.

If early detection of cancer via discovery of thyroid nodules actually helped patients, mortality rates would have dropped with expansion of screening and the resulting diagnoses, said Davis, who is an associate program director at AnMed’s family medicine residency program and affiliate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.

In many cases, people learn they have thyroid lesions after being tested for other conditions such as ultrasound done on carotid arteries to check for stroke risk. The most common form of thyroid cancer is the papillary form. Papillary thyroid cancer tends to be slow growing, carries a low risk for distant metastasis, and in many cases poses little risk. Some small (< 1 cm) papillary thyroid cancers can be monitored with active surveillance as opposed to thyroid lobectomy.

“So just finding more nodules incidentally or through screening ultrasound and even finding more papillary cancers via these methods does not make people healthier or decrease mortality,” Davis said.

“So just finding more things and even finding more papillary cancers does not increase our ability to treat people and keep them alive longer,” Davis said.

The 5-year survival rate for thyroid cancer overall is 98.1% and varies from 99.9% for localized disease to 55.3% for distant disease, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said in a 2017 publication in JAMA. The task force that year gave a “D” rating on screening of asymptomatic people for thyroid cancer. That means there’s moderate certainty that screening for thyroid cancer in asymptomatic persons results in harms that outweigh the benefits. The decision to give this “D” rating meant this screening is not recommended. That’s still the panel’s view.

“You can think of it as a “D” for ‘don’t screen for thyroid cancer,’ ” in people who present no symptoms of this illness, John Wong, MD, the vice chair of the USPSTF, said in an interview.

In primary care, the challenge is assessing thyroid nodules detected when people undergo testing for another reason, such as an ultrasound of the carotid artery to check for stroke risk.

Thyroid nodules can be detected by ultrasonography in up to 68% of the general population, reported a study in American Family Physician. Nodules with suspicious features or ≥ 1 cm require fine needle aspiration. The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology can be used to classify samples, with molecular testing applied to guide treatment when fine needle aspiration yields an indeterminate result.
 

New Thinking on Thyroid Cancer

There’s been a shift in recent years in the approach to how physicians should proceed if certain kinds of thyroid cancer are detected, Cari M. Kitahara, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute noted in a comment accompanying the Li paper.

“Clinicians need to be judicious in the use of thyroid ultrasonography, the diagnostic follow-up of incidentally detected thyroid nodules, and determining the optimal course of treatment,” Kitahara wrote. “For low-risk and incidentally detected tumors, strong consideration should be given to less intensive treatment options (eg, lobectomy, delayed treatment, and active surveillance).”

The American Thyroid Association guidelines encourage de-escalation of treatment for low-risk papillary thyroid carcinoma up to 4 cm.

Physicians often need to make clear to patients how a diagnosis of low-risk papillary thyroid cancer differs from other oncology diagnoses, R. Michael Tuttle, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, said in an interview.

“I’ll frequently say that everything you’ve ever learned about cancer, you need to forget,” Tuttle said.

Some patients will mistakenly think any cancer diagnosis is a likely death sentence, meaning they should rush to get aggressive treatment. Tuttle has been a leader for many years in efforts in advancing active surveillance as an option for certain people with low-risk thyroid cancer.

“I often start my consultation by saying: ‘We’re going to choose between two right answers here. One right answer is watching right. One right answer is going to surgery,’ ” Tuttle said.

Patients with low-risk thyroid cancer tend to fall into two camps, with maximalists likely to seek quick treatment and minimalists more inclined for surveillance if that’s an option for them, Tuttle said. As opinions have shifted within the medical community about approaches to low-risk thyroid cancer, there’s also been some growing awareness among the public about thyroid overdiagnosis.

“Ten or 15 years ago, people thought we were crazy” to consider active surveillance as an option for low-risk thyroid cancers,” Tuttle said. “Now we have swung, at least in some of the public opinion, to this recognition that every little speck of cancer doesn’t need to be immediately taken out of your body.”

Some patients express regret about having learned that they have low-risk thyroid cancer, Tuttle said.

“Over the last 5 years, it’s not uncommon for patients to ask me, ‘Is this one of those that needs to be treated now, or is this one of those that we wish we would have never found?’ Or people will say, ‘My doctor talked me into an ultrasound, I didn’t want it’ or ‘I had a car wreck, and I found this nodule and I wished I had never found it.’ ”

This study from Li and coauthors was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, the Young Talents Program of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, the Italian Association for Cancer Research, and the Italian Ministry of Health. Davis and Tuttle had no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Efforts to curb overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer have made a difference in the United States and South Korea, but these countries still have high rates of excess treatment of indolent lesions, according to a recently published global study.

The proportion of thyroid cancer cases attributable to overdiagnosis globally was higher in women (78%) than in men (68%), with this rate varying substantially across countries, wrote Mengmeng Li, PhD, of the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China, and coauthors in an October paper in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Overdiagnosis refers to the diagnosis of lesions that would not cause symptoms and that would not progress, if left alone.

Increased testing for thyroid cancer, fueled in large part by the expansion of imaging technologies and progressively more intense and disorganized scrutiny of the thyroid, led many people to be treated for often indolent lesions, exposing them to potential side effects as well as financial and emotional distress.

Li and coauthors estimate that more than 1.7 million people might have been overdiagnosed between 2013 and 2017 in 63 countries.

“Overdiagnosis clearly emerged in some high-resource countries with private-based health systems in which access to healthcare overrules regulatory controls (eg, in the USA) and in some high-quality public health systems with easy and broad access to thyroid gland diagnostic examinations (eg, in Canada),” Li and coauthors wrote. “Conversely, thyroid cancer is less commonly diagnosed in those countries in which access to diagnosis is guided by strong regulatory rules (eg, in Nordic countries).”

Their study drew from almost 40 years of research, including the latest available data from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s (IARC’s) Global Cancer Observatory. Li and coauthors examined patterns in the time trends of thyroid cancer, mortality data, and trends in diagnosis of thyroid cancer before testing became common in many nations.

This approach is needed in estimating overdiagnosis, where it’s not possible to see what’s happening on a case-by-case level, Salvatore Vaccarella, PhD, a scientist at IARC’s Cancer Surveillance Branch, said in an interview.

Researchers can’t tell whether an individual’s detected early-stage cancers would have remained indolent for years or eventually would have put their life at risk, he said. Instead, the patterns emerge through larger studies of the reported cases of cancer like thyroid tumors and then looking at separate datasets on mortality.

“We can only see that as a big phenomenon when we look at population-based data,” Vaccarella said.
 

Persisting Problem

Recognition of the harms of overdiagnosis has resulted in some reduction of the incidence of thyroid cancer in the United States, Li and coauthors wrote. After adjusting for age, incidence has fallen from 19 per 100,000 women in 2013 to 16 per 100,000 women in 2017. The proportion of thyroid cancer attributed to overdiagnosis has dropped from 76% to 68% in the country.

The paper adds to the evidence suggesting that the rise in screening has not changed mortality rates for thyroid cancer. For example, Li and coauthors reported seeing “a small decrease in thyroid cancer mortality rates over time in some European countries, but this decline (less than 1 per 100,000 women) is marginal compared with the increases in incidence (reaching around 100 per 100,000 women).”

“Moreover, previous data show that the downward mortality trends had begun before the wide use of ultrasonography for early detection and that period and birth cohort effects have been declining, probably due to treatment advances and reduced prevalence of risk factors, such as the reduction in iodine deficiency,” they wrote.

In an interview, Amanda Davis, MD, of AnMed, a nonprofit health system based in Anderson, South Carolina, said the new paper from Li and Vaccarella provides further evidence for a cautious approach to thyroid nodules given concerns about overdiagnosis.

If early detection of cancer via discovery of thyroid nodules actually helped patients, mortality rates would have dropped with expansion of screening and the resulting diagnoses, said Davis, who is an associate program director at AnMed’s family medicine residency program and affiliate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston.

In many cases, people learn they have thyroid lesions after being tested for other conditions such as ultrasound done on carotid arteries to check for stroke risk. The most common form of thyroid cancer is the papillary form. Papillary thyroid cancer tends to be slow growing, carries a low risk for distant metastasis, and in many cases poses little risk. Some small (< 1 cm) papillary thyroid cancers can be monitored with active surveillance as opposed to thyroid lobectomy.

“So just finding more nodules incidentally or through screening ultrasound and even finding more papillary cancers via these methods does not make people healthier or decrease mortality,” Davis said.

“So just finding more things and even finding more papillary cancers does not increase our ability to treat people and keep them alive longer,” Davis said.

The 5-year survival rate for thyroid cancer overall is 98.1% and varies from 99.9% for localized disease to 55.3% for distant disease, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) said in a 2017 publication in JAMA. The task force that year gave a “D” rating on screening of asymptomatic people for thyroid cancer. That means there’s moderate certainty that screening for thyroid cancer in asymptomatic persons results in harms that outweigh the benefits. The decision to give this “D” rating meant this screening is not recommended. That’s still the panel’s view.

“You can think of it as a “D” for ‘don’t screen for thyroid cancer,’ ” in people who present no symptoms of this illness, John Wong, MD, the vice chair of the USPSTF, said in an interview.

In primary care, the challenge is assessing thyroid nodules detected when people undergo testing for another reason, such as an ultrasound of the carotid artery to check for stroke risk.

Thyroid nodules can be detected by ultrasonography in up to 68% of the general population, reported a study in American Family Physician. Nodules with suspicious features or ≥ 1 cm require fine needle aspiration. The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology can be used to classify samples, with molecular testing applied to guide treatment when fine needle aspiration yields an indeterminate result.
 

New Thinking on Thyroid Cancer

There’s been a shift in recent years in the approach to how physicians should proceed if certain kinds of thyroid cancer are detected, Cari M. Kitahara, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute noted in a comment accompanying the Li paper.

“Clinicians need to be judicious in the use of thyroid ultrasonography, the diagnostic follow-up of incidentally detected thyroid nodules, and determining the optimal course of treatment,” Kitahara wrote. “For low-risk and incidentally detected tumors, strong consideration should be given to less intensive treatment options (eg, lobectomy, delayed treatment, and active surveillance).”

The American Thyroid Association guidelines encourage de-escalation of treatment for low-risk papillary thyroid carcinoma up to 4 cm.

Physicians often need to make clear to patients how a diagnosis of low-risk papillary thyroid cancer differs from other oncology diagnoses, R. Michael Tuttle, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, said in an interview.

“I’ll frequently say that everything you’ve ever learned about cancer, you need to forget,” Tuttle said.

Some patients will mistakenly think any cancer diagnosis is a likely death sentence, meaning they should rush to get aggressive treatment. Tuttle has been a leader for many years in efforts in advancing active surveillance as an option for certain people with low-risk thyroid cancer.

“I often start my consultation by saying: ‘We’re going to choose between two right answers here. One right answer is watching right. One right answer is going to surgery,’ ” Tuttle said.

Patients with low-risk thyroid cancer tend to fall into two camps, with maximalists likely to seek quick treatment and minimalists more inclined for surveillance if that’s an option for them, Tuttle said. As opinions have shifted within the medical community about approaches to low-risk thyroid cancer, there’s also been some growing awareness among the public about thyroid overdiagnosis.

“Ten or 15 years ago, people thought we were crazy” to consider active surveillance as an option for low-risk thyroid cancers,” Tuttle said. “Now we have swung, at least in some of the public opinion, to this recognition that every little speck of cancer doesn’t need to be immediately taken out of your body.”

Some patients express regret about having learned that they have low-risk thyroid cancer, Tuttle said.

“Over the last 5 years, it’s not uncommon for patients to ask me, ‘Is this one of those that needs to be treated now, or is this one of those that we wish we would have never found?’ Or people will say, ‘My doctor talked me into an ultrasound, I didn’t want it’ or ‘I had a car wreck, and I found this nodule and I wished I had never found it.’ ”

This study from Li and coauthors was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, the Young Talents Program of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, the Italian Association for Cancer Research, and the Italian Ministry of Health. Davis and Tuttle had no relevant financial disclosures.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

SAN FRANCISCO — While the physical toll of cancer is well documented, the financial toll can also be severe and lasting.

Overall, patients with cancer tend to face higher rates of debt collection, medical collections, and bankruptcies, as well as lower credit scores, according to two new studies presented at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2024.

“These are the first studies to provide numerical evidence of financial toxicity among cancer survivors,” Benjamin C. James, MD, with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, Massachusetts, who worked on both studies, said in a statement. “Previous data on this topic largely relies on subjective survey reviews.”

In one study, researchers used the Massachusetts Cancer Registry to identify 99,175 patients diagnosed with cancer between 2010 and 2019 and matched them with 188,875 control individuals without cancer. Researchers then assessed financial toxicity using Experian credit bureau data for participants.

Overall, patients with cancer faced a range of financial challenges that often lasted years following their diagnosis.

Patients were nearly five times more likely to experience bankruptcy and had average credit scores nearly 80 points lower than control individuals without cancer. The drop in credit scores was more pronounced for survivors of bladder, liver, lung, and colorectal cancer (CRC) and persisted for up to 9.5 years.

For certain cancer types, in particular, “we are looking years after a diagnosis, and we see that the credit score goes down and it never comes back up,” James said.

The other study, which used a sample of 7227 patients with CRC from Massachusetts, identified several factors that correlated with lower credit scores.

Compared with patients who only had surgery, peers who underwent radiation only experienced a 62-point drop in their credit score after their diagnosis, while those who had chemotherapy alone had just over a 14-point drop in their credit score. Among patients who had combination treatments, those who underwent both surgery and radiation experienced a nearly 16-point drop in their credit score and those who had surgery and chemoradiation actually experienced a 2.59 bump, compared with those who had surgery alone.

Financial toxicity was worse for patients younger than 62 years, those identifying as Black or Hispanic individuals, unmarried individuals, those with an annual income below $52,000, and those living in deprived areas.

The studies add to findings from the 2015 North American Thyroid Cancer Survivorship Study, which reported that 50% of thyroid cancer survivors encountered financial toxicity because of their diagnosis.

James said the persistent financial strain of cancer care, even in a state like Massachusetts, which mandates universal healthcare, underscores the need for “broader policy changes and reforms, including reconsidering debt collection practices.”

“Financial security should be a priority in cancer care,” he added.

The studies had no specific funding. The authors have disclosed no relevant conflict of interest.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

SAN FRANCISCO — While the physical toll of cancer is well documented, the financial toll can also be severe and lasting.

Overall, patients with cancer tend to face higher rates of debt collection, medical collections, and bankruptcies, as well as lower credit scores, according to two new studies presented at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2024.

“These are the first studies to provide numerical evidence of financial toxicity among cancer survivors,” Benjamin C. James, MD, with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, Massachusetts, who worked on both studies, said in a statement. “Previous data on this topic largely relies on subjective survey reviews.”

In one study, researchers used the Massachusetts Cancer Registry to identify 99,175 patients diagnosed with cancer between 2010 and 2019 and matched them with 188,875 control individuals without cancer. Researchers then assessed financial toxicity using Experian credit bureau data for participants.

Overall, patients with cancer faced a range of financial challenges that often lasted years following their diagnosis.

Patients were nearly five times more likely to experience bankruptcy and had average credit scores nearly 80 points lower than control individuals without cancer. The drop in credit scores was more pronounced for survivors of bladder, liver, lung, and colorectal cancer (CRC) and persisted for up to 9.5 years.

For certain cancer types, in particular, “we are looking years after a diagnosis, and we see that the credit score goes down and it never comes back up,” James said.

The other study, which used a sample of 7227 patients with CRC from Massachusetts, identified several factors that correlated with lower credit scores.

Compared with patients who only had surgery, peers who underwent radiation only experienced a 62-point drop in their credit score after their diagnosis, while those who had chemotherapy alone had just over a 14-point drop in their credit score. Among patients who had combination treatments, those who underwent both surgery and radiation experienced a nearly 16-point drop in their credit score and those who had surgery and chemoradiation actually experienced a 2.59 bump, compared with those who had surgery alone.

Financial toxicity was worse for patients younger than 62 years, those identifying as Black or Hispanic individuals, unmarried individuals, those with an annual income below $52,000, and those living in deprived areas.

The studies add to findings from the 2015 North American Thyroid Cancer Survivorship Study, which reported that 50% of thyroid cancer survivors encountered financial toxicity because of their diagnosis.

James said the persistent financial strain of cancer care, even in a state like Massachusetts, which mandates universal healthcare, underscores the need for “broader policy changes and reforms, including reconsidering debt collection practices.”

“Financial security should be a priority in cancer care,” he added.

The studies had no specific funding. The authors have disclosed no relevant conflict of interest.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

SAN FRANCISCO — While the physical toll of cancer is well documented, the financial toll can also be severe and lasting.

Overall, patients with cancer tend to face higher rates of debt collection, medical collections, and bankruptcies, as well as lower credit scores, according to two new studies presented at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2024.

“These are the first studies to provide numerical evidence of financial toxicity among cancer survivors,” Benjamin C. James, MD, with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, Massachusetts, who worked on both studies, said in a statement. “Previous data on this topic largely relies on subjective survey reviews.”

In one study, researchers used the Massachusetts Cancer Registry to identify 99,175 patients diagnosed with cancer between 2010 and 2019 and matched them with 188,875 control individuals without cancer. Researchers then assessed financial toxicity using Experian credit bureau data for participants.

Overall, patients with cancer faced a range of financial challenges that often lasted years following their diagnosis.

Patients were nearly five times more likely to experience bankruptcy and had average credit scores nearly 80 points lower than control individuals without cancer. The drop in credit scores was more pronounced for survivors of bladder, liver, lung, and colorectal cancer (CRC) and persisted for up to 9.5 years.

For certain cancer types, in particular, “we are looking years after a diagnosis, and we see that the credit score goes down and it never comes back up,” James said.

The other study, which used a sample of 7227 patients with CRC from Massachusetts, identified several factors that correlated with lower credit scores.

Compared with patients who only had surgery, peers who underwent radiation only experienced a 62-point drop in their credit score after their diagnosis, while those who had chemotherapy alone had just over a 14-point drop in their credit score. Among patients who had combination treatments, those who underwent both surgery and radiation experienced a nearly 16-point drop in their credit score and those who had surgery and chemoradiation actually experienced a 2.59 bump, compared with those who had surgery alone.

Financial toxicity was worse for patients younger than 62 years, those identifying as Black or Hispanic individuals, unmarried individuals, those with an annual income below $52,000, and those living in deprived areas.

The studies add to findings from the 2015 North American Thyroid Cancer Survivorship Study, which reported that 50% of thyroid cancer survivors encountered financial toxicity because of their diagnosis.

James said the persistent financial strain of cancer care, even in a state like Massachusetts, which mandates universal healthcare, underscores the need for “broader policy changes and reforms, including reconsidering debt collection practices.”

“Financial security should be a priority in cancer care,” he added.

The studies had no specific funding. The authors have disclosed no relevant conflict of interest.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

The Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX), with bone mineral density, predicts the risk for major osteoporotic fractures and hip fractures in patients with cancer, but FRAX without bone mineral density slightly overestimates these risks, a new analysis found.

METHODOLOGY:

• Cancer-specific guidelines recommend using FRAX to assess fracture risk, but its applicability in patients with cancer remains unclear.
• This retrospective cohort study included 9877 patients with cancer (mean age, 67.1 years) and 45,875 matched control individuals without cancer (mean age, 66.2 years). All participants had dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans.
• Researchers collected data on bone mineral density and fractures. The 10-year probabilities of major osteoporotic fractures and hip fractures were calculated using FRAX, and the observed 10-year probabilities of these fractures were compared with FRAX-derived probabilities.
• Compared with individuals without cancer, patients with cancer had a shorter mean follow-up duration (8.5 vs 7.6 years), a slightly higher mean body mass index, and a higher percentage of parental hip fractures (7.0% vs 8.2%); additionally, patients with cancer were more likely to have secondary causes of osteoporosis (10% vs 38.4%) and less likely to receive osteoporosis medication (9.9% vs 4.2%).

TAKEAWAY:

• Compared with individuals without cancer, patients with cancer had a significantly higher incidence rate of major fractures (12.9 vs 14.5 per 1000 person-years) and hip fractures (3.5 vs 4.2 per 1000 person-years).
• FRAX with bone mineral density exhibited excellent calibration for predicting major osteoporotic fractures (slope, 1.03) and hip fractures (0.97) in patients with cancer, regardless of the site of cancer diagnosis. FRAX without bone mineral density, however, underestimated the risk for both major (0.87) and hip fractures (0.72).
• In patients with cancer, FRAX with bone mineral density findings were associated with incident major osteoporotic fractures (hazard ratio [HR] per SD, 1.84) and hip fractures (HR per SD, 3.61).
• When models were adjusted for FRAX with bone mineral density, patients with cancer had an increased risk for both major osteoporotic fractures (HR, 1.17) and hip fractures (HR, 1.30). No difference was found in the risk for fracture between patients with and individuals without cancer when the models were adjusted for FRAX without bone mineral density, even when considering osteoporosis medication use.

IN PRACTICE:

“This retrospective cohort study demonstrates that individuals with cancer are at higher risk of fracture than individuals without cancer and that FRAX, particularly with BMD [bone mineral density], may accurately predict fracture risk in this population. These results, along with the known mortality risk of osteoporotic fractures among cancer survivors, further emphasize the clinical importance of closing the current osteoporosis care gap among cancer survivors,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

This study, led by Carrie Ye, MD, MPH, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, was published online in JAMA Oncology.

LIMITATIONS:

This study cohort included a selected group of cancer survivors who were referred for DXA scans and may not represent the general cancer population. The cohort consisted predominantly of women, limiting the generalizability to men with cancer. Given the heterogeneity of the population, the findings may not be applicable to all cancer subgroups. Information on cancer stage or the presence of bone metastases at the time of fracture risk assessment was lacking, which could have affected the findings.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was funded by the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation. Three authors reported having ties with various sources, including two who received grants from various organizations.
 

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

The Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX), with bone mineral density, predicts the risk for major osteoporotic fractures and hip fractures in patients with cancer, but FRAX without bone mineral density slightly overestimates these risks, a new analysis found.

METHODOLOGY:

• Cancer-specific guidelines recommend using FRAX to assess fracture risk, but its applicability in patients with cancer remains unclear.
• This retrospective cohort study included 9877 patients with cancer (mean age, 67.1 years) and 45,875 matched control individuals without cancer (mean age, 66.2 years). All participants had dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans.
• Researchers collected data on bone mineral density and fractures. The 10-year probabilities of major osteoporotic fractures and hip fractures were calculated using FRAX, and the observed 10-year probabilities of these fractures were compared with FRAX-derived probabilities.
• Compared with individuals without cancer, patients with cancer had a shorter mean follow-up duration (8.5 vs 7.6 years), a slightly higher mean body mass index, and a higher percentage of parental hip fractures (7.0% vs 8.2%); additionally, patients with cancer were more likely to have secondary causes of osteoporosis (10% vs 38.4%) and less likely to receive osteoporosis medication (9.9% vs 4.2%).

TAKEAWAY:

• Compared with individuals without cancer, patients with cancer had a significantly higher incidence rate of major fractures (12.9 vs 14.5 per 1000 person-years) and hip fractures (3.5 vs 4.2 per 1000 person-years).
• FRAX with bone mineral density exhibited excellent calibration for predicting major osteoporotic fractures (slope, 1.03) and hip fractures (0.97) in patients with cancer, regardless of the site of cancer diagnosis. FRAX without bone mineral density, however, underestimated the risk for both major (0.87) and hip fractures (0.72).
• In patients with cancer, FRAX with bone mineral density findings were associated with incident major osteoporotic fractures (hazard ratio [HR] per SD, 1.84) and hip fractures (HR per SD, 3.61).
• When models were adjusted for FRAX with bone mineral density, patients with cancer had an increased risk for both major osteoporotic fractures (HR, 1.17) and hip fractures (HR, 1.30). No difference was found in the risk for fracture between patients with and individuals without cancer when the models were adjusted for FRAX without bone mineral density, even when considering osteoporosis medication use.

IN PRACTICE:

“This retrospective cohort study demonstrates that individuals with cancer are at higher risk of fracture than individuals without cancer and that FRAX, particularly with BMD [bone mineral density], may accurately predict fracture risk in this population. These results, along with the known mortality risk of osteoporotic fractures among cancer survivors, further emphasize the clinical importance of closing the current osteoporosis care gap among cancer survivors,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

This study, led by Carrie Ye, MD, MPH, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, was published online in JAMA Oncology.

LIMITATIONS:

This study cohort included a selected group of cancer survivors who were referred for DXA scans and may not represent the general cancer population. The cohort consisted predominantly of women, limiting the generalizability to men with cancer. Given the heterogeneity of the population, the findings may not be applicable to all cancer subgroups. Information on cancer stage or the presence of bone metastases at the time of fracture risk assessment was lacking, which could have affected the findings.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was funded by the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation. Three authors reported having ties with various sources, including two who received grants from various organizations.
 

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

The Fracture Risk Assessment Tool (FRAX), with bone mineral density, predicts the risk for major osteoporotic fractures and hip fractures in patients with cancer, but FRAX without bone mineral density slightly overestimates these risks, a new analysis found.

METHODOLOGY:

• Cancer-specific guidelines recommend using FRAX to assess fracture risk, but its applicability in patients with cancer remains unclear.
• This retrospective cohort study included 9877 patients with cancer (mean age, 67.1 years) and 45,875 matched control individuals without cancer (mean age, 66.2 years). All participants had dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans.
• Researchers collected data on bone mineral density and fractures. The 10-year probabilities of major osteoporotic fractures and hip fractures were calculated using FRAX, and the observed 10-year probabilities of these fractures were compared with FRAX-derived probabilities.
• Compared with individuals without cancer, patients with cancer had a shorter mean follow-up duration (8.5 vs 7.6 years), a slightly higher mean body mass index, and a higher percentage of parental hip fractures (7.0% vs 8.2%); additionally, patients with cancer were more likely to have secondary causes of osteoporosis (10% vs 38.4%) and less likely to receive osteoporosis medication (9.9% vs 4.2%).

TAKEAWAY:

• Compared with individuals without cancer, patients with cancer had a significantly higher incidence rate of major fractures (12.9 vs 14.5 per 1000 person-years) and hip fractures (3.5 vs 4.2 per 1000 person-years).
• FRAX with bone mineral density exhibited excellent calibration for predicting major osteoporotic fractures (slope, 1.03) and hip fractures (0.97) in patients with cancer, regardless of the site of cancer diagnosis. FRAX without bone mineral density, however, underestimated the risk for both major (0.87) and hip fractures (0.72).
• In patients with cancer, FRAX with bone mineral density findings were associated with incident major osteoporotic fractures (hazard ratio [HR] per SD, 1.84) and hip fractures (HR per SD, 3.61).
• When models were adjusted for FRAX with bone mineral density, patients with cancer had an increased risk for both major osteoporotic fractures (HR, 1.17) and hip fractures (HR, 1.30). No difference was found in the risk for fracture between patients with and individuals without cancer when the models were adjusted for FRAX without bone mineral density, even when considering osteoporosis medication use.

IN PRACTICE:

“This retrospective cohort study demonstrates that individuals with cancer are at higher risk of fracture than individuals without cancer and that FRAX, particularly with BMD [bone mineral density], may accurately predict fracture risk in this population. These results, along with the known mortality risk of osteoporotic fractures among cancer survivors, further emphasize the clinical importance of closing the current osteoporosis care gap among cancer survivors,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

This study, led by Carrie Ye, MD, MPH, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, was published online in JAMA Oncology.

LIMITATIONS:

This study cohort included a selected group of cancer survivors who were referred for DXA scans and may not represent the general cancer population. The cohort consisted predominantly of women, limiting the generalizability to men with cancer. Given the heterogeneity of the population, the findings may not be applicable to all cancer subgroups. Information on cancer stage or the presence of bone metastases at the time of fracture risk assessment was lacking, which could have affected the findings.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was funded by the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation. Three authors reported having ties with various sources, including two who received grants from various organizations.
 

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.

Demand for new weight loss drugs has surged over the past few years. 

Led by the antiobesity drugs semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound), these popular medications — more commonly known as glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists — have become game changers for shedding excess pounds.

Aside from obesity indications, both drugs have been approved to treat type 2 diabetes under different brand names and have a growing list of other potential benefits, such as reducing inflammation and depression. 

These antiobesity drugs could even have a place in cancer care.

While there’s limited data to support the use of GLP-1 agonists for weight loss in cancer, some oncologists have begun carefully integrating the antiobesity agents into care and studying their effects in this patient population.

The reason: Research suggests that obesity can reduce the effectiveness of cancer therapies, especially in patients with breast cancer, and can increase the risk for treatment-related side effects. 

The idea is that managing patients’ weight will improve their cancer outcomes, explained Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, a breast cancer specialist and professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. 

Although Dr. Pusztai and his oncology peers at Yale don’t yet use GPL-1 agonists, Neil Iyengar, MD, and colleagues have begun doing so to help some patients with breast cancer manage their weight. Dr. Iyengar estimates that a few hundred — almost 40% — of his patients are on the antiobesity drugs.

“For a patient who has really tried to reduce their weight and who is in the obese range, that’s where I think the use of these medications can be considered,” said Dr. Iyengar, a breast cancer oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. 

Why GLP-1s in Cancer?

GLP-1 is a hormone that the small intestine releases after eating. GLP-1 agonists work by mimicking GLP-1 to trigger the release of insulin and reduce the production of glucagon — two processes that help regulate blood sugar. 

These agents, such as Wegovy (or Ozempic when prescribed for diabetes), also slow gastric emptying and can make people feel fuller longer. 

Zebound (or Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes) is considered a dual GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide agonist, which may enhance its weight loss benefits.

In practice, however, these drugs can increase nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, so Dr. Iyengar typically has patients use them afterwards, during maintenance treatment.

Oncologists don’t prescribe the drugs themselves but instead refer patients to endocrinologists or weight management centers that then write the prescriptions. Taking these drugs involves weekly subcutaneous injections patients can administer themselves.

Endocrinologist Emily Gallagher, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, estimates she has prescribed the antiobesity drugs to a few hundred patients with cancer and, like Dr. Iyengar, uses the drugs during maintenance treatment with hormone therapy for breast cancer. She also has used these agents in patients with prostate and endometrial cancers and has found the drugs can help counter steroid weight gain in multiple myeloma. 

But, to date, the evidence for using GPL-1 agonists in cancer remains limited and the practice has not yet become widespread.

Research largely comes down to a few small retrospective studies in patients with breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitors. Although no safety issues have emerged so far, these initial reports suggest that the drugs lead to significantly less weight loss in patients with cancer compared to the general population. 

Dr. Iyengar led one recent study, presented at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, in which he and his team assessed outcomes in 75 women with breast cancer who received a GLP-1 agonist. Almost 80% of patients had diabetes, and 60% received hormone therapy, most commonly an aromatase inhibitor. Patients’ median body mass index (BMI) at baseline was 34 kg/m² (range, 23-50 kg/m²).

From baseline, patients lost 6.2 kg, on average, or about 5% of their total body weight, 12 months after initiating GLP-1 therapy. 

In contrast, phase 3 trials show much higher mean weight loss — about two times — in patients without cancer. 

Another recent study also reported modest weight loss results in patients with breast cancer undergoing endocrine therapy. The researchers reported that, at 12 months, Wegovy led to 4.34% reduction in BMI, compared with a 14% change reported in the general population. Zebound, however, was associated with a 2.31% BMI increase overall — though some patients did experience a decrease — compared with a 15% reduction in the general population. 

“These findings indicate a substantially reduced weight loss efficacy in breast cancer patients on endocrine therapy compared to the general population,” the authors concluded.

It’s unclear why the drugs appear to not work as well in patients with cancer. It’s possible that hormone therapy or metabolic changes interfere with their effectiveness, given that some cancer therapies lead to weight gain. Steroids and hormone therapies, for instance, often increase appetite, and some treatments can slow patients’ metabolism or lead to fatigue, which can make it harder to exercise.

Patients with cancer may need a higher dose of GLP-1 agonists to achieve similar weight loss to the general population, Dr. Iyengar noted.

However, Dr. Gallagher said, in her own experience, she hasn’t found the drugs to be less effective in patients with cancer, especially the newer agents, like Wegovy and Zepbound. 

As for safety, Wegovy and Zepbound both carry a black box warning for thyroid C-cell tumors, including medullary thyroid carcinoma. (Recent research, however, has found that GLP-1 agonists do not increase thyroid cancer risk). 

These antiobesity agents are also contraindicated in patients with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma and in patients who have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, which is associated with medullary thyroid carcinoma.

Dr. Gallagher hasn’t seen any secondary tumors — thyroid or otherwise — in her patients with cancer, but she follows the labeling contraindications. Dr. Iyengar also noted that more recent and larger data sets have shown no impact on this risk, which may not actually exist, he said

Dr. Gallagher remains cautious about using GPL-1 agonists in patients who have had bariatric surgery because these agents can compound the slower gastric emptying and intestinal transit from surgery, potentially leading to gastrointestinal obstructions. 

Looking ahead, GPL-1 manufacturers are interested in adding cancer indications to the drug labeling. Both Dr. Iyengar and Dr. Gallagher said their institutions are in talks with companies to participate in large, multicenter, global phase 3 trials.

Dr. Iyengar welcomes the efforts, not only to test the effectiveness of GPL-1 agonists in oncology but also to “nail down” their safety in cancer. 

“I don’t think that there’s mechanistically anything that’s particularly worrisome,” and current observations suggest that these drugs are likely to be safe, Dr. Iyengar said. Even so, “GLP-1 agonists do a lot of things that we don’t fully understand yet.”

The bigger challenge, Dr. Iyengar noted, is that companies will have to show a sizable benefit to using these drugs in patients with cancer to get the Food and Drug Administration’s approval. And to move the needle on cancer-specific outcomes, these antiobesity drugs will need to demonstrate significant, durable weight loss in patients with cancer. 

But if these drugs can do that, “I think it’s going to be one of the biggest advances in medicine and oncology given the obesity and cancer epidemic,” Dr. Iyengar said. 

Dr. Iyengar has adviser and/or researcher ties with companies that make or are developing GPL-1 agonists, including AstraZeneca, Novartis, Gilead, and Pfizer. Dr. Gallagher is a consultant for Novartis, Flare Therapeutics, Reactive Biosciences, and Seagen.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Demand for new weight loss drugs has surged over the past few years. 

Led by the antiobesity drugs semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound), these popular medications — more commonly known as glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists — have become game changers for shedding excess pounds.

Aside from obesity indications, both drugs have been approved to treat type 2 diabetes under different brand names and have a growing list of other potential benefits, such as reducing inflammation and depression. 

These antiobesity drugs could even have a place in cancer care.

While there’s limited data to support the use of GLP-1 agonists for weight loss in cancer, some oncologists have begun carefully integrating the antiobesity agents into care and studying their effects in this patient population.

The reason: Research suggests that obesity can reduce the effectiveness of cancer therapies, especially in patients with breast cancer, and can increase the risk for treatment-related side effects. 

The idea is that managing patients’ weight will improve their cancer outcomes, explained Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, a breast cancer specialist and professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. 

Although Dr. Pusztai and his oncology peers at Yale don’t yet use GPL-1 agonists, Neil Iyengar, MD, and colleagues have begun doing so to help some patients with breast cancer manage their weight. Dr. Iyengar estimates that a few hundred — almost 40% — of his patients are on the antiobesity drugs.

“For a patient who has really tried to reduce their weight and who is in the obese range, that’s where I think the use of these medications can be considered,” said Dr. Iyengar, a breast cancer oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. 

Why GLP-1s in Cancer?

GLP-1 is a hormone that the small intestine releases after eating. GLP-1 agonists work by mimicking GLP-1 to trigger the release of insulin and reduce the production of glucagon — two processes that help regulate blood sugar. 

These agents, such as Wegovy (or Ozempic when prescribed for diabetes), also slow gastric emptying and can make people feel fuller longer. 

Zebound (or Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes) is considered a dual GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide agonist, which may enhance its weight loss benefits.

In practice, however, these drugs can increase nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, so Dr. Iyengar typically has patients use them afterwards, during maintenance treatment.

Oncologists don’t prescribe the drugs themselves but instead refer patients to endocrinologists or weight management centers that then write the prescriptions. Taking these drugs involves weekly subcutaneous injections patients can administer themselves.

Endocrinologist Emily Gallagher, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, estimates she has prescribed the antiobesity drugs to a few hundred patients with cancer and, like Dr. Iyengar, uses the drugs during maintenance treatment with hormone therapy for breast cancer. She also has used these agents in patients with prostate and endometrial cancers and has found the drugs can help counter steroid weight gain in multiple myeloma. 

But, to date, the evidence for using GPL-1 agonists in cancer remains limited and the practice has not yet become widespread.

Research largely comes down to a few small retrospective studies in patients with breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitors. Although no safety issues have emerged so far, these initial reports suggest that the drugs lead to significantly less weight loss in patients with cancer compared to the general population. 

Dr. Iyengar led one recent study, presented at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, in which he and his team assessed outcomes in 75 women with breast cancer who received a GLP-1 agonist. Almost 80% of patients had diabetes, and 60% received hormone therapy, most commonly an aromatase inhibitor. Patients’ median body mass index (BMI) at baseline was 34 kg/m² (range, 23-50 kg/m²).

From baseline, patients lost 6.2 kg, on average, or about 5% of their total body weight, 12 months after initiating GLP-1 therapy. 

In contrast, phase 3 trials show much higher mean weight loss — about two times — in patients without cancer. 

Another recent study also reported modest weight loss results in patients with breast cancer undergoing endocrine therapy. The researchers reported that, at 12 months, Wegovy led to 4.34% reduction in BMI, compared with a 14% change reported in the general population. Zebound, however, was associated with a 2.31% BMI increase overall — though some patients did experience a decrease — compared with a 15% reduction in the general population. 

“These findings indicate a substantially reduced weight loss efficacy in breast cancer patients on endocrine therapy compared to the general population,” the authors concluded.

It’s unclear why the drugs appear to not work as well in patients with cancer. It’s possible that hormone therapy or metabolic changes interfere with their effectiveness, given that some cancer therapies lead to weight gain. Steroids and hormone therapies, for instance, often increase appetite, and some treatments can slow patients’ metabolism or lead to fatigue, which can make it harder to exercise.

Patients with cancer may need a higher dose of GLP-1 agonists to achieve similar weight loss to the general population, Dr. Iyengar noted.

However, Dr. Gallagher said, in her own experience, she hasn’t found the drugs to be less effective in patients with cancer, especially the newer agents, like Wegovy and Zepbound. 

As for safety, Wegovy and Zepbound both carry a black box warning for thyroid C-cell tumors, including medullary thyroid carcinoma. (Recent research, however, has found that GLP-1 agonists do not increase thyroid cancer risk). 

These antiobesity agents are also contraindicated in patients with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma and in patients who have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, which is associated with medullary thyroid carcinoma.

Dr. Gallagher hasn’t seen any secondary tumors — thyroid or otherwise — in her patients with cancer, but she follows the labeling contraindications. Dr. Iyengar also noted that more recent and larger data sets have shown no impact on this risk, which may not actually exist, he said

Dr. Gallagher remains cautious about using GPL-1 agonists in patients who have had bariatric surgery because these agents can compound the slower gastric emptying and intestinal transit from surgery, potentially leading to gastrointestinal obstructions. 

Looking ahead, GPL-1 manufacturers are interested in adding cancer indications to the drug labeling. Both Dr. Iyengar and Dr. Gallagher said their institutions are in talks with companies to participate in large, multicenter, global phase 3 trials.

Dr. Iyengar welcomes the efforts, not only to test the effectiveness of GPL-1 agonists in oncology but also to “nail down” their safety in cancer. 

“I don’t think that there’s mechanistically anything that’s particularly worrisome,” and current observations suggest that these drugs are likely to be safe, Dr. Iyengar said. Even so, “GLP-1 agonists do a lot of things that we don’t fully understand yet.”

The bigger challenge, Dr. Iyengar noted, is that companies will have to show a sizable benefit to using these drugs in patients with cancer to get the Food and Drug Administration’s approval. And to move the needle on cancer-specific outcomes, these antiobesity drugs will need to demonstrate significant, durable weight loss in patients with cancer. 

But if these drugs can do that, “I think it’s going to be one of the biggest advances in medicine and oncology given the obesity and cancer epidemic,” Dr. Iyengar said. 

Dr. Iyengar has adviser and/or researcher ties with companies that make or are developing GPL-1 agonists, including AstraZeneca, Novartis, Gilead, and Pfizer. Dr. Gallagher is a consultant for Novartis, Flare Therapeutics, Reactive Biosciences, and Seagen.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Demand for new weight loss drugs has surged over the past few years. 

Led by the antiobesity drugs semaglutide (Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Zepbound), these popular medications — more commonly known as glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists — have become game changers for shedding excess pounds.

Aside from obesity indications, both drugs have been approved to treat type 2 diabetes under different brand names and have a growing list of other potential benefits, such as reducing inflammation and depression. 

These antiobesity drugs could even have a place in cancer care.

While there’s limited data to support the use of GLP-1 agonists for weight loss in cancer, some oncologists have begun carefully integrating the antiobesity agents into care and studying their effects in this patient population.

The reason: Research suggests that obesity can reduce the effectiveness of cancer therapies, especially in patients with breast cancer, and can increase the risk for treatment-related side effects. 

The idea is that managing patients’ weight will improve their cancer outcomes, explained Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, a breast cancer specialist and professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. 

Although Dr. Pusztai and his oncology peers at Yale don’t yet use GPL-1 agonists, Neil Iyengar, MD, and colleagues have begun doing so to help some patients with breast cancer manage their weight. Dr. Iyengar estimates that a few hundred — almost 40% — of his patients are on the antiobesity drugs.

“For a patient who has really tried to reduce their weight and who is in the obese range, that’s where I think the use of these medications can be considered,” said Dr. Iyengar, a breast cancer oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. 

Why GLP-1s in Cancer?

GLP-1 is a hormone that the small intestine releases after eating. GLP-1 agonists work by mimicking GLP-1 to trigger the release of insulin and reduce the production of glucagon — two processes that help regulate blood sugar. 

These agents, such as Wegovy (or Ozempic when prescribed for diabetes), also slow gastric emptying and can make people feel fuller longer. 

Zebound (or Mounjaro for type 2 diabetes) is considered a dual GLP-1 and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide agonist, which may enhance its weight loss benefits.

In practice, however, these drugs can increase nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, so Dr. Iyengar typically has patients use them afterwards, during maintenance treatment.

Oncologists don’t prescribe the drugs themselves but instead refer patients to endocrinologists or weight management centers that then write the prescriptions. Taking these drugs involves weekly subcutaneous injections patients can administer themselves.

Endocrinologist Emily Gallagher, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, estimates she has prescribed the antiobesity drugs to a few hundred patients with cancer and, like Dr. Iyengar, uses the drugs during maintenance treatment with hormone therapy for breast cancer. She also has used these agents in patients with prostate and endometrial cancers and has found the drugs can help counter steroid weight gain in multiple myeloma. 

But, to date, the evidence for using GPL-1 agonists in cancer remains limited and the practice has not yet become widespread.

Research largely comes down to a few small retrospective studies in patients with breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitors. Although no safety issues have emerged so far, these initial reports suggest that the drugs lead to significantly less weight loss in patients with cancer compared to the general population. 

Dr. Iyengar led one recent study, presented at the 2024 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, in which he and his team assessed outcomes in 75 women with breast cancer who received a GLP-1 agonist. Almost 80% of patients had diabetes, and 60% received hormone therapy, most commonly an aromatase inhibitor. Patients’ median body mass index (BMI) at baseline was 34 kg/m² (range, 23-50 kg/m²).

From baseline, patients lost 6.2 kg, on average, or about 5% of their total body weight, 12 months after initiating GLP-1 therapy. 

In contrast, phase 3 trials show much higher mean weight loss — about two times — in patients without cancer. 

Another recent study also reported modest weight loss results in patients with breast cancer undergoing endocrine therapy. The researchers reported that, at 12 months, Wegovy led to 4.34% reduction in BMI, compared with a 14% change reported in the general population. Zebound, however, was associated with a 2.31% BMI increase overall — though some patients did experience a decrease — compared with a 15% reduction in the general population. 

“These findings indicate a substantially reduced weight loss efficacy in breast cancer patients on endocrine therapy compared to the general population,” the authors concluded.

It’s unclear why the drugs appear to not work as well in patients with cancer. It’s possible that hormone therapy or metabolic changes interfere with their effectiveness, given that some cancer therapies lead to weight gain. Steroids and hormone therapies, for instance, often increase appetite, and some treatments can slow patients’ metabolism or lead to fatigue, which can make it harder to exercise.

Patients with cancer may need a higher dose of GLP-1 agonists to achieve similar weight loss to the general population, Dr. Iyengar noted.

However, Dr. Gallagher said, in her own experience, she hasn’t found the drugs to be less effective in patients with cancer, especially the newer agents, like Wegovy and Zepbound. 

As for safety, Wegovy and Zepbound both carry a black box warning for thyroid C-cell tumors, including medullary thyroid carcinoma. (Recent research, however, has found that GLP-1 agonists do not increase thyroid cancer risk). 

These antiobesity agents are also contraindicated in patients with a personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma and in patients who have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, which is associated with medullary thyroid carcinoma.

Dr. Gallagher hasn’t seen any secondary tumors — thyroid or otherwise — in her patients with cancer, but she follows the labeling contraindications. Dr. Iyengar also noted that more recent and larger data sets have shown no impact on this risk, which may not actually exist, he said

Dr. Gallagher remains cautious about using GPL-1 agonists in patients who have had bariatric surgery because these agents can compound the slower gastric emptying and intestinal transit from surgery, potentially leading to gastrointestinal obstructions. 

Looking ahead, GPL-1 manufacturers are interested in adding cancer indications to the drug labeling. Both Dr. Iyengar and Dr. Gallagher said their institutions are in talks with companies to participate in large, multicenter, global phase 3 trials.

Dr. Iyengar welcomes the efforts, not only to test the effectiveness of GPL-1 agonists in oncology but also to “nail down” their safety in cancer. 

“I don’t think that there’s mechanistically anything that’s particularly worrisome,” and current observations suggest that these drugs are likely to be safe, Dr. Iyengar said. Even so, “GLP-1 agonists do a lot of things that we don’t fully understand yet.”

The bigger challenge, Dr. Iyengar noted, is that companies will have to show a sizable benefit to using these drugs in patients with cancer to get the Food and Drug Administration’s approval. And to move the needle on cancer-specific outcomes, these antiobesity drugs will need to demonstrate significant, durable weight loss in patients with cancer. 

But if these drugs can do that, “I think it’s going to be one of the biggest advances in medicine and oncology given the obesity and cancer epidemic,” Dr. Iyengar said. 

Dr. Iyengar has adviser and/or researcher ties with companies that make or are developing GPL-1 agonists, including AstraZeneca, Novartis, Gilead, and Pfizer. Dr. Gallagher is a consultant for Novartis, Flare Therapeutics, Reactive Biosciences, and Seagen.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Medicare Advantage plans had lower adjusted total resource use than traditional Medicare for patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy, with no difference in 18-month survival between the two groups.

METHODOLOGY:

• Private Medicare Advantage plans enroll more than half of the Medicare population, but it is unknown if or how the cost restrictions they impose affect chemotherapy, which accounts for a large portion of cancer care costs.
• Researchers conducted a cohort study using national Medicare data from January 2015 to December 2019 to look at Medicare Advantage enrollment and treatment patterns for patients with cancer receiving chemotherapy.
• The study included 96,501 Medicare Advantage enrollees and 206,274 traditional Medicare beneficiaries who initiated chemotherapy between January 2016 and December 2019 (mean age, ~73 years; ~56% women; Hispanic individuals, 15% and 8%; Black individuals, 15% and 8%; and White individuals, 75% and 86%, respectively).
• Resource use and care quality were measured during a 6-month period following chemotherapy initiation, and survival days were measured 18 months after beginning chemotherapy.
• Resource use measures included hospital inpatient services, outpatient care, prescription drugs, hospice services, and chemotherapy services. Quality measures included chemotherapy-related emergency visits and hospital admissions, as well as avoidable emergency visits and preventable hospitalizations.

TAKEAWAY:

• Medicare Advantage plans had lower resource use than traditional Medicare per enrollee with cancer undergoing chemotherapy ($8718 lower; 95% CI, $8343-$9094).
• The lower resource use was largely caused by fewer chemotherapy visits and less expensive chemotherapy per visit in Medicare Advantage plans ($5032 lower; 95% CI, $4772-$5293).
• Medicare Advantage enrollees had 2.5 percentage points fewer chemotherapy-related emergency department visits and 0.7 percentage points fewer chemotherapy-related hospitalizations than traditional Medicare beneficiaries.
• There was no clinically meaningful difference in survival between Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare beneficiaries during the 18 months following chemotherapy initiation.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our new finding is that MA [Medicare Advantage] plans had lower resource use than TM [traditional Medicare] among enrollees with cancer undergoing chemotherapy — a serious condition managed by specialists and requiring expensive treatments. This suggests that MA’s cost advantages over TM are not limited to conditions for which low-cost primary care management can avoid costly services,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Yamini Kalidindi, PhD, McDermott+ Consulting, Washington, DC. It was published online on September 20, 2024, in JAMA Network Open (doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.34707), with a commentary.

LIMITATIONS:

The study’s findings may be affected by unobserved patient characteristics despite the use of inverse-probability weighting. The exclusion of Medicare Advantage enrollees in contracts with incomplete encounter data limits the generalizability of the results. The study does not apply to beneficiaries without Part D drug coverage. Quality measures were limited to those available from claims and encounter data, lacking information on patients’ cancer stage. The 18-month measure of survival might not adequately capture survival differences associated with early-stage cancers. The study did not measure whether patient care followed recommended guidelines.

DISCLOSURES:

Various authors reported grants from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institutes of Health, The Commonwealth Fund, Arnold Ventures, the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense, and the National Institute of Health Care Management. Additional disclosures are noted in the original article.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Medicare Advantage plans had lower adjusted total resource use than traditional Medicare for patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy, with no difference in 18-month survival between the two groups.

METHODOLOGY:

• Private Medicare Advantage plans enroll more than half of the Medicare population, but it is unknown if or how the cost restrictions they impose affect chemotherapy, which accounts for a large portion of cancer care costs.
• Researchers conducted a cohort study using national Medicare data from January 2015 to December 2019 to look at Medicare Advantage enrollment and treatment patterns for patients with cancer receiving chemotherapy.
• The study included 96,501 Medicare Advantage enrollees and 206,274 traditional Medicare beneficiaries who initiated chemotherapy between January 2016 and December 2019 (mean age, ~73 years; ~56% women; Hispanic individuals, 15% and 8%; Black individuals, 15% and 8%; and White individuals, 75% and 86%, respectively).
• Resource use and care quality were measured during a 6-month period following chemotherapy initiation, and survival days were measured 18 months after beginning chemotherapy.
• Resource use measures included hospital inpatient services, outpatient care, prescription drugs, hospice services, and chemotherapy services. Quality measures included chemotherapy-related emergency visits and hospital admissions, as well as avoidable emergency visits and preventable hospitalizations.

TAKEAWAY:

• Medicare Advantage plans had lower resource use than traditional Medicare per enrollee with cancer undergoing chemotherapy ($8718 lower; 95% CI, $8343-$9094).
• The lower resource use was largely caused by fewer chemotherapy visits and less expensive chemotherapy per visit in Medicare Advantage plans ($5032 lower; 95% CI, $4772-$5293).
• Medicare Advantage enrollees had 2.5 percentage points fewer chemotherapy-related emergency department visits and 0.7 percentage points fewer chemotherapy-related hospitalizations than traditional Medicare beneficiaries.
• There was no clinically meaningful difference in survival between Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare beneficiaries during the 18 months following chemotherapy initiation.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our new finding is that MA [Medicare Advantage] plans had lower resource use than TM [traditional Medicare] among enrollees with cancer undergoing chemotherapy — a serious condition managed by specialists and requiring expensive treatments. This suggests that MA’s cost advantages over TM are not limited to conditions for which low-cost primary care management can avoid costly services,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Yamini Kalidindi, PhD, McDermott+ Consulting, Washington, DC. It was published online on September 20, 2024, in JAMA Network Open (doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.34707), with a commentary.

LIMITATIONS:

The study’s findings may be affected by unobserved patient characteristics despite the use of inverse-probability weighting. The exclusion of Medicare Advantage enrollees in contracts with incomplete encounter data limits the generalizability of the results. The study does not apply to beneficiaries without Part D drug coverage. Quality measures were limited to those available from claims and encounter data, lacking information on patients’ cancer stage. The 18-month measure of survival might not adequately capture survival differences associated with early-stage cancers. The study did not measure whether patient care followed recommended guidelines.

DISCLOSURES:

Various authors reported grants from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institutes of Health, The Commonwealth Fund, Arnold Ventures, the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense, and the National Institute of Health Care Management. Additional disclosures are noted in the original article.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

TOPLINE:

Medicare Advantage plans had lower adjusted total resource use than traditional Medicare for patients with cancer undergoing chemotherapy, with no difference in 18-month survival between the two groups.

METHODOLOGY:

• Private Medicare Advantage plans enroll more than half of the Medicare population, but it is unknown if or how the cost restrictions they impose affect chemotherapy, which accounts for a large portion of cancer care costs.
• Researchers conducted a cohort study using national Medicare data from January 2015 to December 2019 to look at Medicare Advantage enrollment and treatment patterns for patients with cancer receiving chemotherapy.
• The study included 96,501 Medicare Advantage enrollees and 206,274 traditional Medicare beneficiaries who initiated chemotherapy between January 2016 and December 2019 (mean age, ~73 years; ~56% women; Hispanic individuals, 15% and 8%; Black individuals, 15% and 8%; and White individuals, 75% and 86%, respectively).
• Resource use and care quality were measured during a 6-month period following chemotherapy initiation, and survival days were measured 18 months after beginning chemotherapy.
• Resource use measures included hospital inpatient services, outpatient care, prescription drugs, hospice services, and chemotherapy services. Quality measures included chemotherapy-related emergency visits and hospital admissions, as well as avoidable emergency visits and preventable hospitalizations.

TAKEAWAY:

• Medicare Advantage plans had lower resource use than traditional Medicare per enrollee with cancer undergoing chemotherapy ($8718 lower; 95% CI, $8343-$9094).
• The lower resource use was largely caused by fewer chemotherapy visits and less expensive chemotherapy per visit in Medicare Advantage plans ($5032 lower; 95% CI, $4772-$5293).
• Medicare Advantage enrollees had 2.5 percentage points fewer chemotherapy-related emergency department visits and 0.7 percentage points fewer chemotherapy-related hospitalizations than traditional Medicare beneficiaries.
• There was no clinically meaningful difference in survival between Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare beneficiaries during the 18 months following chemotherapy initiation.

IN PRACTICE:

“Our new finding is that MA [Medicare Advantage] plans had lower resource use than TM [traditional Medicare] among enrollees with cancer undergoing chemotherapy — a serious condition managed by specialists and requiring expensive treatments. This suggests that MA’s cost advantages over TM are not limited to conditions for which low-cost primary care management can avoid costly services,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Yamini Kalidindi, PhD, McDermott+ Consulting, Washington, DC. It was published online on September 20, 2024, in JAMA Network Open (doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.34707), with a commentary.

LIMITATIONS:

The study’s findings may be affected by unobserved patient characteristics despite the use of inverse-probability weighting. The exclusion of Medicare Advantage enrollees in contracts with incomplete encounter data limits the generalizability of the results. The study does not apply to beneficiaries without Part D drug coverage. Quality measures were limited to those available from claims and encounter data, lacking information on patients’ cancer stage. The 18-month measure of survival might not adequately capture survival differences associated with early-stage cancers. The study did not measure whether patient care followed recommended guidelines.

DISCLOSURES:

Various authors reported grants from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institutes of Health, The Commonwealth Fund, Arnold Ventures, the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense, and the National Institute of Health Care Management. Additional disclosures are noted in the original article.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication. A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Despite the “remarkable progress” in cancer research and care, cancer remains “an ongoing public health challenge,” which requires significant attention and funding, according to the Cancer Progress Report 2024 from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

The AACR’s 216-page report — an annual endeavor now in its 14th year — focused on the “tremendous” strides made in cancer care, prevention, and early detection and highlighted areas where more research and attention are warranted. 

One key area is funding. For the first time since 2016, federal funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) decreased in the past year. The cuts followed nearly a decade of funding increases that saw the NIH budget expand by nearly $15 billion, and that allowed for a “rapid pace and broad scope” of advances in cancer, AACR’s chief executive officer Margaret Foti, MD, PhD, said during a press briefing.

These recent cuts “threaten to curtail the medical progress seen in recent years and stymie future advancements,” said Dr. Foti, who called on Congress to commit to funding cancer research at significant and consistent levels to “maintain the momentum of progress against cancer.”
 

Inside the Report: Big Progress

Overall, advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment have helped catch more cancers earlier and save lives. 

According to the AACR report, the age-adjusted overall cancer death rate in the United States fell by 33% between 1991 and 2021, meaning about 4.1 million cancer deaths were averted. The overall cancer death rate for children and adolescents has declined by 24% in the past 2 decades. The 5-year relative survival rate for children diagnosed with cancer in the US has improved from 58% for those diagnosed in the mid-1970s to 85% for those diagnosed between 2013 and 2019.

The past fiscal year has seen many new approvals for cancer drugs, diagnostics, and screening tests. From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 15 new anticancer therapeutics, as well as 15 new indications for previously approved agents, one new imaging agent, several artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve early cancer detection and diagnosis, and two minimally invasive tests for assessing inherited cancer risk or early cancer detection, according to the report.

“Cancer diagnostics are becoming more sophisticated,” AACR president Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, PhD, said during the briefing. “New technologies, such as spatial transcriptomics, are helping us study tumors at a cellular level, and helping to unveil things that we did not initially even begin to understand or think of. AI-based approaches are beginning to transform cancer detection, diagnosis, clinical decision-making, and treatment response monitoring.” 

The report also highlights the significant progress in many childhood and adolescent/young adult cancers, Dr. LoRusso noted. These include FDA approvals for two new molecularly targeted therapeutics: tovorafenib for children with certain types of brain tumor and repotrectinib for children with a wide array of cancer types that have a specific genetic alteration known as NTRK gene fusion. It also includes an expanded approval for eflornithine to reduce the risk for relapse in children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

“Decades — decades — of basic research discoveries, have led to these clinical breakthroughs,” she stressed. “These gains against cancer are because of the rapid progress in our ability to decode the cancer genome, which has opened new and innovative avenues for drug development.”
 

The Gaps

Even with progress in cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment, cancer remains a significant issue.

“In 2024, it is estimated that more than 2 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States. More than 611,000 people will die from the disease,” according to the report.

The 2024 report shows that incidence rates for some cancers are increasing in the United States, including vaccine-preventable cancers such as human papillomavirus (HPV)–associated oral cancers and, in young adults, cervical cancers. A recent analysis also found that overall cervical cancer incidence among women aged 30-34 years increased by 2.5% a year between 2012 and 2019.

Furthermore, despite clear evidence demonstrating that the HPV vaccine reduces cervical cancer incidence, uptake has remained poor, with only 38.6% of US children and adolescents aged 9-17 years receiving at least one dose of the vaccine in 2022.

Early-onset cancers are also increasing. Rates of breast, colorectal, and other cancers are on the rise in adults younger than 50 years, the report noted.

The report also pointed to data that 40% of all cancer cases in the United States can be attributed to preventable factors, such as smoking, excess body weight, and alcohol. However, our understanding of these risk factors has improved. Excessive levels of alcohol consumption have, for instance, been shown to increase the risk for six different types of cancer: certain types of head and neck cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and breast, colorectal, liver, and stomach cancers.

Financial toxicity remains prevalent as well.

The report explains that financial hardship following a cancer diagnosis is widespread, and the effects can last for years. In fact, more than 40% of patients can spend their entire life savings within the first 2 years of cancer treatment. Among adult survivors of childhood cancers, 20.7% had trouble paying their medical bills, 29.9% said they had been sent to debt collection for unpaid bills, 14.1% had forgone medical care, and 26.8% could not afford nutritious meals.

For young cancer survivors, the lifetime costs associated with a diagnosis of cancer are substantial, reaching an average of $259,324 per person.

On a global level, it is estimated that from 2020 to 2050, the cumulative economic burden of cancer will be $25.2 trillion.
 

The Path Forward

Despite these challenges, Dr. LoRusso said, “it is unquestionable that we are in a time of unparalleled opportunities in cancer research.

“I am excited about what the future holds for cancer research, and especially for patient care,” she said. 

However, funding commitments are needed to avoid impeding this momentum and losing a “talented and creative young workforce” that has brought new ideas and new technologies to the table.

Continued robust funding will help “to markedly improve cancer care, increase cancer survivorship, spur economic growth, and maintain the United States’ position as the global leader in science and medical research,” she added.

The AACR report specifically calls on Congress to:

• Appropriate at least $51.3 billion in fiscal year 2025 for the base budget of the NIH and at least $7.934 billion for the NCI.
• Provide $3.6 billion in dedicated funding for Cancer Moonshot activities through fiscal year 2026 in addition to other funding, consistent with the President’s fiscal year 2025 budget.
• Appropriate at least $472.4 million in fiscal year 2025 for the CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention to support comprehensive cancer control, central cancer registries, and screening and awareness programs for specific cancers.
• Allocate $55 million in funding for the Oncology Center of Excellence at FDA in fiscal year 2025 to provide regulators with the staff and tools necessary to conduct expedited review of cancer-related medical products.

By working together with Congress and other stakeholders, “we will be able to accelerate the pace of progress and make major strides toward the lifesaving goal of preventing and curing all cancers at the earliest possible time,” Dr. Foti said. “I believe if we do that ... one day we will win this war on cancer.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Despite the “remarkable progress” in cancer research and care, cancer remains “an ongoing public health challenge,” which requires significant attention and funding, according to the Cancer Progress Report 2024 from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

The AACR’s 216-page report — an annual endeavor now in its 14th year — focused on the “tremendous” strides made in cancer care, prevention, and early detection and highlighted areas where more research and attention are warranted. 

One key area is funding. For the first time since 2016, federal funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) decreased in the past year. The cuts followed nearly a decade of funding increases that saw the NIH budget expand by nearly $15 billion, and that allowed for a “rapid pace and broad scope” of advances in cancer, AACR’s chief executive officer Margaret Foti, MD, PhD, said during a press briefing.

These recent cuts “threaten to curtail the medical progress seen in recent years and stymie future advancements,” said Dr. Foti, who called on Congress to commit to funding cancer research at significant and consistent levels to “maintain the momentum of progress against cancer.”
 

Inside the Report: Big Progress

Overall, advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment have helped catch more cancers earlier and save lives. 

According to the AACR report, the age-adjusted overall cancer death rate in the United States fell by 33% between 1991 and 2021, meaning about 4.1 million cancer deaths were averted. The overall cancer death rate for children and adolescents has declined by 24% in the past 2 decades. The 5-year relative survival rate for children diagnosed with cancer in the US has improved from 58% for those diagnosed in the mid-1970s to 85% for those diagnosed between 2013 and 2019.

The past fiscal year has seen many new approvals for cancer drugs, diagnostics, and screening tests. From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 15 new anticancer therapeutics, as well as 15 new indications for previously approved agents, one new imaging agent, several artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve early cancer detection and diagnosis, and two minimally invasive tests for assessing inherited cancer risk or early cancer detection, according to the report.

“Cancer diagnostics are becoming more sophisticated,” AACR president Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, PhD, said during the briefing. “New technologies, such as spatial transcriptomics, are helping us study tumors at a cellular level, and helping to unveil things that we did not initially even begin to understand or think of. AI-based approaches are beginning to transform cancer detection, diagnosis, clinical decision-making, and treatment response monitoring.” 

The report also highlights the significant progress in many childhood and adolescent/young adult cancers, Dr. LoRusso noted. These include FDA approvals for two new molecularly targeted therapeutics: tovorafenib for children with certain types of brain tumor and repotrectinib for children with a wide array of cancer types that have a specific genetic alteration known as NTRK gene fusion. It also includes an expanded approval for eflornithine to reduce the risk for relapse in children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

“Decades — decades — of basic research discoveries, have led to these clinical breakthroughs,” she stressed. “These gains against cancer are because of the rapid progress in our ability to decode the cancer genome, which has opened new and innovative avenues for drug development.”
 

The Gaps

Even with progress in cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment, cancer remains a significant issue.

“In 2024, it is estimated that more than 2 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States. More than 611,000 people will die from the disease,” according to the report.

The 2024 report shows that incidence rates for some cancers are increasing in the United States, including vaccine-preventable cancers such as human papillomavirus (HPV)–associated oral cancers and, in young adults, cervical cancers. A recent analysis also found that overall cervical cancer incidence among women aged 30-34 years increased by 2.5% a year between 2012 and 2019.

Furthermore, despite clear evidence demonstrating that the HPV vaccine reduces cervical cancer incidence, uptake has remained poor, with only 38.6% of US children and adolescents aged 9-17 years receiving at least one dose of the vaccine in 2022.

Early-onset cancers are also increasing. Rates of breast, colorectal, and other cancers are on the rise in adults younger than 50 years, the report noted.

The report also pointed to data that 40% of all cancer cases in the United States can be attributed to preventable factors, such as smoking, excess body weight, and alcohol. However, our understanding of these risk factors has improved. Excessive levels of alcohol consumption have, for instance, been shown to increase the risk for six different types of cancer: certain types of head and neck cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and breast, colorectal, liver, and stomach cancers.

Financial toxicity remains prevalent as well.

The report explains that financial hardship following a cancer diagnosis is widespread, and the effects can last for years. In fact, more than 40% of patients can spend their entire life savings within the first 2 years of cancer treatment. Among adult survivors of childhood cancers, 20.7% had trouble paying their medical bills, 29.9% said they had been sent to debt collection for unpaid bills, 14.1% had forgone medical care, and 26.8% could not afford nutritious meals.

For young cancer survivors, the lifetime costs associated with a diagnosis of cancer are substantial, reaching an average of $259,324 per person.

On a global level, it is estimated that from 2020 to 2050, the cumulative economic burden of cancer will be $25.2 trillion.
 

The Path Forward

Despite these challenges, Dr. LoRusso said, “it is unquestionable that we are in a time of unparalleled opportunities in cancer research.

“I am excited about what the future holds for cancer research, and especially for patient care,” she said. 

However, funding commitments are needed to avoid impeding this momentum and losing a “talented and creative young workforce” that has brought new ideas and new technologies to the table.

Continued robust funding will help “to markedly improve cancer care, increase cancer survivorship, spur economic growth, and maintain the United States’ position as the global leader in science and medical research,” she added.

The AACR report specifically calls on Congress to:

• Appropriate at least $51.3 billion in fiscal year 2025 for the base budget of the NIH and at least $7.934 billion for the NCI.
• Provide $3.6 billion in dedicated funding for Cancer Moonshot activities through fiscal year 2026 in addition to other funding, consistent with the President’s fiscal year 2025 budget.
• Appropriate at least $472.4 million in fiscal year 2025 for the CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention to support comprehensive cancer control, central cancer registries, and screening and awareness programs for specific cancers.
• Allocate $55 million in funding for the Oncology Center of Excellence at FDA in fiscal year 2025 to provide regulators with the staff and tools necessary to conduct expedited review of cancer-related medical products.

By working together with Congress and other stakeholders, “we will be able to accelerate the pace of progress and make major strides toward the lifesaving goal of preventing and curing all cancers at the earliest possible time,” Dr. Foti said. “I believe if we do that ... one day we will win this war on cancer.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Despite the “remarkable progress” in cancer research and care, cancer remains “an ongoing public health challenge,” which requires significant attention and funding, according to the Cancer Progress Report 2024 from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

The AACR’s 216-page report — an annual endeavor now in its 14th year — focused on the “tremendous” strides made in cancer care, prevention, and early detection and highlighted areas where more research and attention are warranted. 

One key area is funding. For the first time since 2016, federal funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) decreased in the past year. The cuts followed nearly a decade of funding increases that saw the NIH budget expand by nearly $15 billion, and that allowed for a “rapid pace and broad scope” of advances in cancer, AACR’s chief executive officer Margaret Foti, MD, PhD, said during a press briefing.

These recent cuts “threaten to curtail the medical progress seen in recent years and stymie future advancements,” said Dr. Foti, who called on Congress to commit to funding cancer research at significant and consistent levels to “maintain the momentum of progress against cancer.”
 

Inside the Report: Big Progress

Overall, advances in prevention, early detection, and treatment have helped catch more cancers earlier and save lives. 

According to the AACR report, the age-adjusted overall cancer death rate in the United States fell by 33% between 1991 and 2021, meaning about 4.1 million cancer deaths were averted. The overall cancer death rate for children and adolescents has declined by 24% in the past 2 decades. The 5-year relative survival rate for children diagnosed with cancer in the US has improved from 58% for those diagnosed in the mid-1970s to 85% for those diagnosed between 2013 and 2019.

The past fiscal year has seen many new approvals for cancer drugs, diagnostics, and screening tests. From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 15 new anticancer therapeutics, as well as 15 new indications for previously approved agents, one new imaging agent, several artificial intelligence (AI) tools to improve early cancer detection and diagnosis, and two minimally invasive tests for assessing inherited cancer risk or early cancer detection, according to the report.

“Cancer diagnostics are becoming more sophisticated,” AACR president Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, PhD, said during the briefing. “New technologies, such as spatial transcriptomics, are helping us study tumors at a cellular level, and helping to unveil things that we did not initially even begin to understand or think of. AI-based approaches are beginning to transform cancer detection, diagnosis, clinical decision-making, and treatment response monitoring.” 

The report also highlights the significant progress in many childhood and adolescent/young adult cancers, Dr. LoRusso noted. These include FDA approvals for two new molecularly targeted therapeutics: tovorafenib for children with certain types of brain tumor and repotrectinib for children with a wide array of cancer types that have a specific genetic alteration known as NTRK gene fusion. It also includes an expanded approval for eflornithine to reduce the risk for relapse in children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

“Decades — decades — of basic research discoveries, have led to these clinical breakthroughs,” she stressed. “These gains against cancer are because of the rapid progress in our ability to decode the cancer genome, which has opened new and innovative avenues for drug development.”
 

The Gaps

Even with progress in cancer prevention, early detection, and treatment, cancer remains a significant issue.

“In 2024, it is estimated that more than 2 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States. More than 611,000 people will die from the disease,” according to the report.

The 2024 report shows that incidence rates for some cancers are increasing in the United States, including vaccine-preventable cancers such as human papillomavirus (HPV)–associated oral cancers and, in young adults, cervical cancers. A recent analysis also found that overall cervical cancer incidence among women aged 30-34 years increased by 2.5% a year between 2012 and 2019.

Furthermore, despite clear evidence demonstrating that the HPV vaccine reduces cervical cancer incidence, uptake has remained poor, with only 38.6% of US children and adolescents aged 9-17 years receiving at least one dose of the vaccine in 2022.

Early-onset cancers are also increasing. Rates of breast, colorectal, and other cancers are on the rise in adults younger than 50 years, the report noted.

The report also pointed to data that 40% of all cancer cases in the United States can be attributed to preventable factors, such as smoking, excess body weight, and alcohol. However, our understanding of these risk factors has improved. Excessive levels of alcohol consumption have, for instance, been shown to increase the risk for six different types of cancer: certain types of head and neck cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and breast, colorectal, liver, and stomach cancers.

Financial toxicity remains prevalent as well.

The report explains that financial hardship following a cancer diagnosis is widespread, and the effects can last for years. In fact, more than 40% of patients can spend their entire life savings within the first 2 years of cancer treatment. Among adult survivors of childhood cancers, 20.7% had trouble paying their medical bills, 29.9% said they had been sent to debt collection for unpaid bills, 14.1% had forgone medical care, and 26.8% could not afford nutritious meals.

For young cancer survivors, the lifetime costs associated with a diagnosis of cancer are substantial, reaching an average of $259,324 per person.

On a global level, it is estimated that from 2020 to 2050, the cumulative economic burden of cancer will be $25.2 trillion.
 

The Path Forward

Despite these challenges, Dr. LoRusso said, “it is unquestionable that we are in a time of unparalleled opportunities in cancer research.

“I am excited about what the future holds for cancer research, and especially for patient care,” she said. 

However, funding commitments are needed to avoid impeding this momentum and losing a “talented and creative young workforce” that has brought new ideas and new technologies to the table.

Continued robust funding will help “to markedly improve cancer care, increase cancer survivorship, spur economic growth, and maintain the United States’ position as the global leader in science and medical research,” she added.

The AACR report specifically calls on Congress to:

• Appropriate at least $51.3 billion in fiscal year 2025 for the base budget of the NIH and at least $7.934 billion for the NCI.
• Provide $3.6 billion in dedicated funding for Cancer Moonshot activities through fiscal year 2026 in addition to other funding, consistent with the President’s fiscal year 2025 budget.
• Appropriate at least $472.4 million in fiscal year 2025 for the CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention to support comprehensive cancer control, central cancer registries, and screening and awareness programs for specific cancers.
• Allocate $55 million in funding for the Oncology Center of Excellence at FDA in fiscal year 2025 to provide regulators with the staff and tools necessary to conduct expedited review of cancer-related medical products.

By working together with Congress and other stakeholders, “we will be able to accelerate the pace of progress and make major strides toward the lifesaving goal of preventing and curing all cancers at the earliest possible time,” Dr. Foti said. “I believe if we do that ... one day we will win this war on cancer.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.