The main aim is to examine whether medical oncologists’ prescribing of drugs and services for older adult patients with advanced cancer is used more in physicians’ offices compared with hospital outpatient departments.A shift in outpatient oncology care from the physician’s office to hospital outpatient settings has generated interest in the effect of practice setting on outcomes.
This was a retrospective comparative study. SEER-Medicare data (2004 to 2011) were used to identify Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with advanced breast, colon, esophagus, non–small-cell lung, pancreatic, or stomach cancer. Compared with patients treated in a hospital outpatient department, those treated in a physician’s office setting were more likely to receive erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (odds ratio, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.53 to 1.94) and granulocyte colony–stimulating factors (odds ratio, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.18 to 1.38). For combination chemotherapy and nanoparticle albumin-bound–paclitaxel in patients with breast cancer, there was a trend toward higher use in physicians’ offices, although this was not statistically significant.
In the article with data it was found somewhat higher use of several drugs for patients with advanced cancer in physicians’ office settings compared with hospital outpatient departments.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7010433/
