Medical oncologists who received drug industry payments were more likely to prescribe treatments tied to those payments, even when the treatments were not guideline-preferred, according to a study published Sept. 15 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Led by researchers from New York City-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the study analyzed Medicare fee-for-service claims for 15,607 patients diagnosed with cancer between 2014 and 2020 to assess whether industry payments to medical oncologists were associated with patients receiving treatments preferred under National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines.
Here are five notes from the study:
- The study included 14 cancer scenarios with multiple guideline-recommended treatment options with differing clinical benefits.
- Of the 15,607 patients included in the study, 60.2% were treated by medical oncologists who received no industry payments in the year before diagnosis. Of those patients, 41.6% received the guideline-preferred treatment.
- Among patients whose oncologists received payments only for the guideline-preferred treatment, 51.5% received that treatment, while 34.7% of patients whose oncologists received payments only for a nonpreferred treatment received the guideline-preferred treatment.
Among patients whose oncologists received payments for both preferred and nonpreferred treatments, 42.9% received the guideline-preferred treatment. - Higher payment amounts were associated with stronger links between payments and treatments received.
- After adjusting for other factors, researchers found that patients were more likely to receive the guideline-preferred treatment when their oncologists had received payments for it and less likely if their oncologists had received payments for a nonpreferred treatment.
Read the full study here.
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