Amgen announced today, April 3, 2005, that they have submitted a Biologic License Application (BLA) to the FDA for panitumumab for use in metastatic colorectal cancer where all current standard treatments have failed.

Previously they had announced the results of a Phase III clinical trial that compared panitumumab used as a single agent to best supportive care alone in colorectal cancer patients whose cancers had progressed on standard therapy.  In that trial, there was a significant improvement in progression-free survival in patients who received panitumumab.

The trial will be discussed today at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research  (AACR).

The Senate passed the Feinstein-Mikulski amendment late last night.  This amendment provides an additional $390 million in cancer funding, with increases of:

• $240 million for the NCI
• $4.6 million for the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities
• $117 million for cancer programs at the CDC
• $25 million for the Nurse Reinvestment Act and Nursing Programs at HRSA

“Coming on the heels of our dramatic victory yesterday on the Specter Harkin amendment, we have accomplished much in a very difficult fiscal environment. The success of both these amendments puts the United States Senate clearly on record strongly opposing the President’s cuts to cancer funding, and will greatly strengthen our negotiating position as we enter the all important appropriations process this summer and fall,” says Dan Smith, VP of the American Cancer Society and Chair of One Voice Against Cancer.

“The Senate has a track record of supporting cancer research and prevention,” says Nancy Roach, C3 President.  “The House will be a challenge. Stay tuned!”

See Senator Feinstein’s press release

On March 16, the Senate voted to support the Specter-Harkin amendment to the Senate budget resolution.  What does that mean?  Well, the President’s Budget cut spending on health and education, including a $40 million cut at NCI.  The goal of the Specter-Harkin amendment is to restore funding to the health and education programs.

The amendment (which passed on a 73-27 vote) proposes an increase of $7 billion in funding for education and health programs, much of which will go to funding critical health and cancer-specific programs at the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The House still needs to act and final funding decisions won’t be made until the fall.  It is safe to say that while there are no guarantees in this business, we do know that there would have been no hope of increased funding this year without passage of this critical amendment,” says Dan Smith, VP of the American Cancer Society and Chair of One Voice Against Cancer.

How did your senator vote? Check it out!

On February 6, 2006 the President proposed a budget freeze for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2007 which will hold its funding steady at $26.6 billion. Most of NIH’s 27 institutes and centers will ge a slight cut under the President’s plan. The budget designates $4.75 billion for the National Cancer Institute which is a $40 million cut from fiscal year (FY) 2006.

The following quote if from the article “NIH Faces a Tough Budget Year” by Jocelyn Kaiser on the ScienceNOW Daily News web site:

“We’re not in a position to do as much as many of us would like,” said Michael Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, at a budget briefing today. When asked why biomedicine was not included among the science agencies funded by the president’s American Competitiveness Initiative, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni explained that the physical sciences are “complementary” to NIH’s mission. “I don’t think biomedicine is necessarily less urgent … but you have to make choices that are not necessarily going to make everybody happy.”

The FY 2007 NCI funding comes on top of the hard cut it received in the FY 2006 budget. The 2006 budget gave a slight increase to NIH and NCI but when the one percent across the board cut to domestic discresionary programs enacted is factored in the increase becomes a decrease. Go here to read a previous post on the FY 2006 budget.

Congress took a bold step forward in 1998 when it promised to double the NIH budget within five years. Congress kept that promise and opend the floodgates to countless new opportunities and advances in cancer research and programs. The result is that cancer survivorship rates have steadily increased each year and for the first time since 1930 the number of cancer deaths in the United States decreased in 2003.

This research momentum will not continue without a stable and reasonable level of funding increases. Less funding translates into fewer discoveries, fewer new drugs in development, and fewer new treatments reaching patients.

In 2003 I made my first visit to Washington, D.C. to talk to my Senators and Representative as a part of the One Voice Against Cancer Lobby Day. One of the speakers quoted the President as saying, “In order to win the war against cancer we must fund the war against cancer.” I want to see deeds not just hear words.

Making cancer a national priority will save millions of lives, reduce untold suffering, and save the nation billions of dollars in healthcare costs now and in the future. The investment is surely worth it.

Quality of health care for Americans has continued to improve at a modest pace, and health care disparities are narrowing overall for many minority Americans. But for Hispanics, disparities have widened in both quality of care and access to care, according to reports by HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

The findings are contained in the 2005 National Healthcare Quality Report and its companion document, the 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report. These reports, issued annually, measure quality and disparities in four key areas of health care: effectiveness, patient safety, timeliness, and patient centeredness.

The quality report employs a wide range of measures, including health care outcomes such as hospital-acquired infections and reductions in deaths from certain diseases. It also measures how well the health care system is using specific treatments that are known to work most effectively. The disparities report compares these measures by race and ethnicity and by income. It also measures access to care, using indicators such as health insurance status and frequency of visits to a physician. This year, for the first time, the report also shows trends in health care disparities from year to year.

The 2005 National Healthcare Quality Report finds that overall quality of care for all Americans improved at a rate of 2.8 percent, the same increase shown in last year’s report. However, the report notes there has been much more rapid improvement in some measures, especially where there have been focused efforts to improve care.

The 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report finds that many of the largest disparities in measures of quality and access are observed for low-income people regardless of race or ethnicity, with some signs of improvement. Overall, more racial disparities in quality of care were narrowing than were widening, and most racial disparities in access to care were narrowing (affecting blacks, Asians and American Indians/Alaska Natives). But for Hispanics, the majority of disparities for both quality and access were growing wider.

“The quality report finds modest overall progress in quality of care for Americans and areas where we must continue to work to close health care gaps. Faster progress is especially apparent where focused efforts, including public reporting of quality results, have taken place,” said AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy, M.D. “It is clear that the need for action to improve quality of care for all Americans continues to be great.”

Examples of findings in the AHRQ disparities report include:

• Rates of late-stage breast cancer decreased more rapidly from 1992 to 2002 among black women (169 to 161 per 100,000 women) than among white women (152 to 151 per 100,000), resulting in a narrowing disparity.
• Treatment of heart failure improved more rapidly from 2002 to 2003 among American Indian Medicare beneficiaries (69 percent to 74 percent) than among white Medicare beneficiaries (73 percent to 74 percent), resulting in an elimination of this disparity.
• The quality of diabetes care declined from 2000 to 2002 among Hispanic adults (44 percent to 38 percent) as it improved among white adults (50 percent to 55 percent).
• The quality of patient-provider communication (as reported by patients themselves) declined from 2000 to 2002 among Hispanic adults (87 percent to 84 percent) as it improved among white adults (93 percent to 94 percent).
• Access to a usual source of care increased slightly from 1999 to 2003 for Hispanics (77 percent to 78 percent) and whites (88 percent to 90 percent), with Hispanics less likely to have access to a usual source of care.

The report finds a 10.2 percent annual improvement in the five core measures of patient safety. These are areas where coordinated national efforts are underway to improve the delivery of specific “best practice” treatments to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors.

“In many areas, we know the specific treatment steps and procedures that are needed to improve quality. These reports indicate that when we focus on those best practices, we can make rapid improvement, especially when results are publicly reported,” Dr. Clancy said.

Improvements were greatest in quality measures for diabetes, heart disease, respiratory conditions, nursing home care, and maternal and child health care. The overall rate of change for these measures was 5.4 percent.

Dr. Clancy said the findings in the report can help target efforts more effectively to improve quality and reduce disparities. “These reports are a complex picture of our progress so far. They can help target where improvement is most needed and help show us how to bring those improvements about,” she said.

The reports were issued today at the National Leadership Summit on Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health, sponsored by the HHS Office of Minority Health. The summit marks the 20th anniversary of the issuance of the Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Black and Minority Health, which led to new efforts to improve the health and health care of minority Americans.

The AHRQ reports are available online at www.qualitytools.ahrq.gov, by calling 1-800-358-9295 or by sending an E-mail to ahrqpubs@ahrq.gov.