Vol. 24/No. 16

As a result of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, positive trends are becoming apparent regarding mortality rates for patients with cancer living in the states that have adopted Medicaid expansion.

Drug development is a difficult and ever-changing process, with new agents being developed by industry and academic partners.

Expression of DLL3, an inhibitor ligand of the Notch pathway associated with tumorigenesis, has emerged as a target of interest for drug development.

Although renal cell carcinoma remains a difficult-to-treat disease, with patients with clear cell histology experiencing a median overall survival of approximately 13 months and a 5-year overall survival rate of less than 10%, updated results from clinical trials examining emerging therapeutic strategies have spurred optimism.

Maurie Markman, MD, highlights the rather profound fiscal implications of the combined effect of 2 quite different but closely related components of the rapidly evolving cancer treatment paradigm.