SEATTLE – May 26, 2023 – At the 2023 American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting—to be held June 2-6 in Chicago, Illinois—Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center experts will present research spanning survivorship, advances in treatments and clinical trials, how access to cancer care affects outcomes, integrative medicine and more.
Featured Fred Hutch presentations and poster sessions are listed below; for a full list of Fred Hutch research at ASCO and the dates and times of presentations, please visit our website. For media inquiries at ASCO, please contact Claire Hudson at crhudson@fredhutch.org. You can follow our researchers on Twitter #ASCO23 and visit us at booth #4023.
Equitable access to cancer care
Dr. Hiba Khan will present an oral abstract assessing the impact of financial distress on cancer survival rates. Researchers in Fred Hutch’s Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research, or HICOR, found that patients with cancer who experienced severe adverse financial events, such as third-party collections, delinquent mortgage payments, tax liens, foreclosures or repossessions within two years of diagnosis were at higher risk for mortality after adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical factors.
Additional research on health equity and access includes:
· An analysis showing that adverse financial events resulted in increased health care utilization and greater per-patient costs at end of life, in a poster session from led by Dr. Chipo Kwendakwema of HICOR.
· Dr. Scott Ramsey and the HICOR team followed cancer patients using smartwatches and apps to monitor symptoms and biometric data during treatment. In a poster session, they share that compared to commercially-insured cancer patients, financially fragile and Medicaid-insured patients had significantly higher average heart rates, unique symptoms and repeat symptoms.
· A study revealing health disparities in access to molecular testing that inform the use of targeted therapies in patients with advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer. In a poster session led by Dr. Lauren Shih, HICOR researchers found testing rates were lowest among Hispanic patients, older patients, males and people with Medicaid insurance.
· A poster session, led by Qin Sun of HICOR, in which researchers found underuse of germline testing in patients with prostate, pancreas and ovarian cancers, despite guideline recommendations. Lack of germline testing not only can affect treatment, it’s also a missed opportunity to identify genetic risk factors in family members.
Source: fredhutch
