Breast cancer research and treatment
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Breast Cancer Res. Treat. · Oct 2017
Increasing utilization of regional nodal irradiation in elderly node-positive women and declining emphasis on demographic factors.
To evaluate the practice patterns for the use of regional nodal irradiation (RNI) in treatment of elderly women with low volume node-positive breast cancer in the setting of breast conservation surgery (BCS). ⋯ There was an increase in utilization of RNI for elderly patients from 2004 to 2013. In more recent years, the primary factors associated with receipt of RNI were tumor related with declining importance of demographic factors.
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Breast Cancer Res. Treat. · Oct 2017
Review Meta AnalysisReviewing the quality, health benefit and value for money of chemotherapy and targeted therapy for metastatic breast cancer.
To provide an overview of model characteristics and outcomes of model-based economic evaluations concerning chemotherapy and targeted therapy (TT) for metastatic breast cancer (MBC); to assess the quality of the studies; to analyse the association between model characteristics and study quality and outcomes. ⋯ The development of a disease-specific reference model would improve the transparency and quality of model-based cost-effectiveness assessments for MBC treatments. Incremental health benefits increased over time, but were outweighed by the increased treatment costs. Consequently, increased health benefits led to lower value for money.