Patient perceptions and expectations regarding imaging for metastatic disease in early stage breast cancer

Abstract Purpose The probability of detecting radiologically evident metastatic disease in asymptomatic women with newly diagnosed operable breast cancer is low. Despite the recommendations of most practice guidelines imaging is still frequently performed. Relatively little is known about what patients believe is important when it comes to radiologic staging. Methods Patients with early stage breast cancer who had completed their definitive breast surgery were surveyed about their personal experiences, perceptions, and expectations on the issue of perioperative imaging for distant metastatic disease. Results Over a 3 month period, 245 women with primary operable breast cancer completed the questionnaire (87.0% response rate) and 80.8% indicated having had at least one imaging test for distant metastatic disease. These were either of the thorax (72.2%), abdomen (55.9%) or skeleton (65.3%) with a total of 701 imaging tests (average of 3.5 tests per patient imaged) performed. Overall, 57.1% indicated that they would want imaging done if the chance of detecting metastases was ≤10%. Although 80.0% of patients indicated that, “doing whatever their doctor recommended” was important to them, 70.4% also noted that they would be uncomfortable if their physician did not order imaging, even if this was in keeping with practice guidelines. Conclusions Most patients with early stage breast cancer recall having imaging tests for distant metastases. Given the choice, most would prefer having imaging performed, even if this is not in line with current guidelines. If patient expectations are, in part, driving excessive imaging, new strategies addressing this are required

A comparison of educational events for physicians and nurses in Australia sponsored by opioid manufacturers.

BackgroundEducational activities for physicians sponsored by opioid manufacturers are implicated in the over- and mis-prescribing of opioids. However, the implications of promotion to nurses are poorly understood. Nurses play a key role in assessing pain, addressing the determinants of pain, and administering opioid medications. We sought to understand the nature and content of pain-related educational events sponsored by opioid manufacturers and to compare events targeting physicians and nurses.MethodsWe conducted a cross sectional, descriptive analysis of pharmaceutical company reports detailing 116,845 sponsored educational events attended by health professionals from 2011 to 2015 in Australia. We included events that were sponsored by manufacturers of prescription opioid analgesics and were pain related. We compared event characteristics across three attendee groups: (a) physicians only; (b) at least one nurse in attendance; and (c) nurses only. We coded the unstructured data using iteratively generated keywords for variables related to location, format, and content focus.ResultsWe identified 3,411 pain-related events sponsored by 3 companies: bioCSL/CSL (n = 15), Janssen (n = 134); and Mundipharma (n = 3,262). Pain-related events were most often multidisciplinary, including at least one nurse (1,964/3,411; 58%); 38% (1,281/3,411) included physicians only, and 5% (166/3,411) nurses only. The majority of events were held in clinical settings (61%) and 43% took the form of a journal club. Chronic pain was the most common event topic (26%) followed by cancer pain and palliative care (18%), and then generic or unspecified references to pain (15%); nearly a third (32%) of event descriptions contained insufficient information to determine the content focus. Nurse-only events were less frequently held in clinical settings (32%; p DiscussionOpioid promotion via sponsored educational events extends beyond physicians to multidisciplinary teams and specifically, nurses. Despite lack of evidence that opioids improve outcomes for long-term chronic non-cancer pain, hundreds of sponsored educational events focused on chronic pain. Regulators should consider the validity of distinguishing between pharmaceutical companies' "promotional" and "non-promotional" activities

Effects of de-escalated bisphosphonate therapy on bone turnover biomarkers in breast cancer patients with bone metastases

Abstract While de-escalation of bisphosphonates from 4 to 12-weekly dosing has been shown to be clinically non-inferior to standard dosing, there is evidence the de-escalation is associated with increased bone turnover biomarkers. Here we evaluated the effect of de-escalated dosing on a panel of biomarkers and determined their association with incidence of skeletal related events (SREs) in breast cancer patients with ‘low risk’ bone metastases. As part of a pilot randomized trial, women with baseline C-telopeptide levels 3 months of 3–4 weekly pamidronate were randomized to continue pamidronate every 4 weeks or de-escalation to 12-weekly treatment. Serum was analysed for bone biomarkers (C-telopeptide, N-telopeptide, bone-specific alkaline phosphatase, transforming growth factor-β, procollagen type 1 N-propeptide, activinA and bone sialoprotein) using ELISA. The associations between changes in biomarkers, pain scores and SREs were assessed by univariable logistic regression. Numerical increases in all biomarkers were observed between baseline and 12 weeks but were of higher magnitude in the de-escalated arm. Pain scores in the de-escalated treatment arm showed a greater magnitude of pain reduction from baseline to 12 weeks. Neither baseline levels nor changes in biomarkers from baseline to 12 weeks on treatment were associated with on study SREs. Baseline pain as measured by the FACT-BP was associated with increased risk of SRE. In conclusion, biomarkers of bone activity do not appear to predict for SREs in ‘low risk’ cohorts. However, baseline bone pain appears to be associated with SRE occurrence, a finding which warrants evaluation in larger cohorts

A cost-utility analysis of risk model-guided versus physician’s choice antiemetic prophylaxis in patients receiving chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer: a net benefit regression approach

© 2017, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Purpose: We assessed the cost-effectiveness of a risk model-guided (RMG) antiemetic prophylaxis strategy compared with the physician’s choice (PC) strategy in patients receiving chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. Methods: We conducted a cost-utility analysis based on a published randomized controlled trial of 324 patients with early-stage breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy at two Canadian cancer centers. Patients were randomized to receive their antiemetic treatments according to either predefined risk scores or the treating physician’s preference. Effectiveness was measured as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained. Cost and utility data were obtained from the Canadian published literature. We used generalized estimating equations to estimate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) over a range of willingness-to-pay values. The lower and upper bounds of the 95% CIs were used to characterize the statistical uncertainty for the cost-effectiveness estimates and construct cost-effectiveness acceptability curves. Results: From the health care system’s perspective, the RMG strategy was associated with greater QALYs gained (0.0016, 95% CI 0.0009, 0.0022) and higher cost ($49.19, 95$24.87, $73.08) than the PC strategy, resulting in an ICER of$30,864.28 (95% CI $14,718.98,$62,789.04). At the commonly used threshold of $50,000/QALY, the probability that RMG prophylaxis is cost-effective was > 94%; this probability increased with greater willingness-to-pay values. Conclusion: The risk-guided antiemetic prophylaxis is an economically attractive option for patients receiving chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. This information supports the implementation of risk prediction models to guide chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting prophylaxis in clinical practices