Study finds link between industry payments to oncologists and non-recommended cancer treatments

This finding raises potential concerns about quality of care, and the researchers say it may be appropriate to re-examine the current status of personal payments from the drug industry to physicians.

The two non-recommended drugs were denosumab, a bone modifying drug for castration sensitive prostate cancer, and granulocyte colony stimulating factors to prevent neutropenic fever in patients receiving chemotherapy. The results show that the proportion of patients who received non-recommended denosumab within six months of their diagnosis was 31.4% for those whose oncologist had not received payment and 49.5% for those whose oncologist had.

Smaller effects were seen after further adjusting for physicians' characteristics including specialist area and practice setting. For example, payments from industry were associated with a 7.4% greater use of denosumab and a 1.7% greater use of nabpaclitaxel, but not with GCSF or branded drugs.

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Industry payments to physicians linked to use of some non-recommended and low-value drugs among cancer patientsPatients with cancer whose oncologists receive payments from industry appear more likely to receive some non-recommended and low-value treatments, finds a US study published by The BMJ today.
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