Khan and Kwendakwema Discuss Financial Toxicity in Patients With Cancer

Welcome to OncLiveOn Air^®! I’m your host today, Ashling Wahner.

OncLive On Air^® is a podcast from OncLive^®, which provides oncology professionals with the resources and information they need to provide the best patient care. In both digital and print formats, OncLive^® covers every angle of oncology practice, from new technology to treatment advances to important regulatory decisions. 

In today’s episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Hiba Khan, MD, MPH, and Natasha Kwendakwema, MD, about the effects of adverse financial events in patients with cancer. Drs Khan and Kwendakwema are hematology/oncology fellows at Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington.

At the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting, Dr Khan presented research findings regarding the risk of early mortality in patients with cancer who experience financial toxicity. This study found that patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry who experienced adverse financial events between 2013 and 2018 had higher rates of early mortality compared with patients who did not experience these events. Dr Kwendakwema presented research on the effects of financial toxicity on treatment costs and healthcare utilization at the end of life for patients with cancer. This research demonstrated that patients who experienced adverse financial events were more likely to require increased end-of-life care, such as hospitalization, and more likely toincurhigher health care costs in their last 6 months of life.

In our exclusive interview, Drs Khan and Kwendakwema discussed the methods and design of these studies, the future implications of these findings, and the importance of continued investigation into the effects of financial toxicity in patients with cancer.

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