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Agreement opens access to cancer trials
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There is cause for
celebration for cancer patients who could benefit from participation in
clinical trials.
A voluntary agreement with insurance companies announced May 18 at the
Statehouse will ensure the coverage of routine care costs for patients
enrolled in cancer clinical trials.
Unfortunately, clinical-trial participation rates among adult cancer
patients have been traditionally low. One major barrier to increasing
the participation rate is the potential for patients to lose insurance
coverage for routine patient care when they enroll in a clinical
trial—a barrier removed this month in South Carolina.
“Nationally, just three to five percent of cancer patients enroll in
clinical trials, a low number that we believe is often due to
reimbursement barriers,” said Andrew S. Kraft, M.D., director of the
Hollings Cancer Center (HCC). “This agreement means that thousands of
cancer patients can consider clinical trials as an option and not fear
being denied because of the costs of standard procedures.”
Terri Matson, director of the Clinical Trials Office at HCC, said she
worked alongside many non-profits, including the South Carolina Cancer
Alliance and the American Cancer Society to advocate the importance of
this issue and its potential impact to legislators.
As the only provider involved in the process, my role was largely to
educate our legislators on what cancer clinical trials are and what
they mean to the future of cancer care. While MUSC paved the way,
it is our hope that many other cancer-care providers will share in this
wonderful benefit for all our patients throughout the state.”
Matson said the agreement was a monumental occasion that was five years
in the making. One clinical trial alone could enroll as many as 5,000
to 6,000 cancer patients, she said. Cancer clinical trials are crucial
in that they result in the next generation of treatments to fight
cancer.
“I can’t imagine patients having a treatment option taken away because
of the fear their insurance company won’t cover the routine costs, and
they’ll be stuck with all the costs,” she said of her passion to see
the agreement approved. “The concept of cancer clinical trials is to
evaluate if one treatment is as good or hopefully better then the
current ‘gold standard’ treatment—so to tell a cancer patient they
don’t have access to what could potentially be better then the current
standard is unimaginable. If it were me, I would be furious, and
no one should ever be in the position of having to make that decision.”
Effective July 1 patients will have the choice to participate in a
clinical trial without the fear that their insurance provider will deny
coverage for routine costs.
With this agreement, South Carolina will join the 32 other states with
this continuation of care provision, she said. To date, four insurance
providers have agreed to this coverage, which represents more than 90
percent of the population covered by third-party payers in the state.
Participating in the agreement are members of the state Alliance of
Health Plans, including BlueCross BlueShield, BlueChoice, Carolina Care
Plan and UnitedHealthcare of the Carolinas.
Matson said the hope is to encourage more patients to consider
participating in a clinical trial if that is a treatment option.
“Nationally only 3 to 5 percent of cancer patients participate in
cancer clinical trials and that is one main reason we haven’t
progressed cancer treatment as quickly as we could have,” she said. “At
Hollings Cancer Center, which of course is a National Cancer Institute
Designated Cancer Center, approximately 12 to 13 percent of our
patients participate in cancer clinical trials and our vision is to
increase that figure to 20 percent.”
For information on clinical trials, visit http://hcc.musc.edu/research/clinicaltrials/index.htm
or call 792-9321
Friday, May 28, 2010
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