ASH Clinical News June 2016 | Page 21

CLINICAL NEWS

If you want to up your odds of getting your paper published in a high-impact journal , make sure your trial has a positive outcome , according to a meta-analysis of phase III oncology trials conducted by the Southwest Oncology Group and published between 1985 and 2014 .

26 of 94 ( 28 %) phase III clinical trials were deemed “ positive ,” meaning they achieved a statistically significant outcome in favor of a new or experimental treatment . Compared with negative trials , these positive trials were more likely to be published and cited as follows :

Source : Huntington SF , Gross CP . Negative studies in cancer research : why the negativity ? JAMA Oncol . 2016 March 26 . [ Epub ahead of print ]

A study published in Health Affairs shines a light on a worrying trend : When anti-cancer drugs enter the market , they ’ re priced high , and they stay there .

Looking at reimbursement changes for oral anti-cancer drugs during the medications ’ launches and over time , researchers found that , between 2007 and 2013 , costs increased by 5 % each year and by 10 % when regulators approved a new indication for the drug .

Introducing rival drugs to the market had a minimal effect on drug pricing , with only a 2 % decline in cost .

Source : Bennette CS , Richards C , Sullivan SD , Ramsey SD . Steady increases in prices for oral anticancer drugs after market launch suggests a lack of competitive pressure . Health Aff . 2016 ; 35:805-12 .

If medical errors were listed as a cause of death on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ’ s ( CDC ’ s ) annual list of the leading causes of death , it would rank # 3 , according to a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine .

The authors estimate that more than 251,454 U . S . patients die each year from medical errors , such as unrecognized surgical complications or mistakes in medication dosing .

Based on the CDC ’ s latest official list , that would rank just behind heart disease ( 614,348 deaths ) and cancer ( 591,699 deaths ), and ahead of respiratory disease ( 147,101 deaths ).

However , the authors noted , it is impossible to know the exact toll taken by medical errors , since the CDC ’ s coding system to record death certificate data doesn ’ t capture factors like communication breakdowns , diagnostic errors , and poor judgment .

Source : Makary MA , Daniel M . Medical error — the third leading cause of death in the US . BMJ . 2016 May 3 . [ Epub ahead of print ]

A new report from the U . S . Department of Health and Human Services shows that rising prices and a shift toward more expensive medications are driving the increases in prescription drug spending .

From 2010 to 2014 :

• The total number of prescriptions increased from 3.5 billion to 3.9 billion – an 11 % jump

• Overall spending rose from $ 356 billion to $ 424 billion – a 26 % jump

“ The fact that total expenditures rose more quickly than the number of prescriptions suggests that prices are growing faster than quantities ,” the authors wrote . “ Therefore , price changes are contributing more to the growth in spending than is growth in volume of prescriptions .”

Overall Spending

$ 356,000,000,000

$ 424,000,000,000

0 100 200 300 400 500 Measured in Billions

ASHClinicalNews . org ASH Clinical News

19