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Kenneth H. Shain, MD, PhD, discusses the evolution of treatment for patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma and how physicians are leveraging data with chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy and minimal residual disease negativity to improve outcomes.

This week, the top managed care news included a panel mostly endorsed the use of patient-reported outcomes for coverage of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy; the US Preventive Services Task Force released new recommendations for cervical cancer screening; research found accountable care organization penetration may be changing how physicians work.

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies have quickly moved from early phase clinical trials to FDA approval for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, with research now exploring ways to shift these agents earlier in the treatment paradigm.

Luciano J. Costa, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine, Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cell Therapy Program, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, discusses phase II findings with the triplet regimen of venetoclax (Venclexta), carfilzomib (Kyprolis), and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. Costa shared this insight in an interview with OncLive during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel has been approved for a second type of blood cancer; the National Institutes of Health has started recruiting individuals for a database that will include data on more than 1 million people; Kansas’ request to impose a 3-year lifetime limit on Medicaid benefits is testing just how open the Trump administration is to allowing states flexibility.

CAR T-cell therapies tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah, Novartis) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta, Kite Pharma/Gilead) may come with hefty price tags, but the cost-effectiveness of both therapies fell below or within commonly cited thresholds of $50,000 to $150,000 per quality-adjusted life years, according to a report by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review.