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Background: The health care industry spends more on lobbying than any other industry, with more than $700 million spent in 2022. However, health care lobbying related to cancer has not been characterized. In this study, we sought to describe overall health sector lobbying spending and oncology-related lobbying spending across patient and clinician organizations., Methods: We obtained lobbying data from OpenSecrets.org and the Federal Election Commission. Overall health sector lobbying spending was categorized by OpenSecrets into 4 groups: pharmaceuticals/health products, health services/health maintenance organizations (HMOs), hospitals/nursing homes, and health professionals. We then identified and categorized 4 oncology-related lobbying groups: oncology physician professional organizations (OPPOs), prospective payment system (PPS)-exempt cancer hospitals, patient advocacy organizations, and provider networks (eg, US Oncology Network). We described temporal trends in lobbying spending from 2014 to 2022, in both overall dollar value (inflation-adjusted 2023 dollars) and in per-physician spending (using American Association of Medical Colleges [AAMC] data for number of hematologists/oncologists) using a Mann-Kendall trend test., Results: Among the overall health sector lobbying, pharmaceuticals/health products had the greatest increase in lobbying spending, with an increase from $294 million in 2014 to >$376 million in 2022 (P=.0006). In contrast, lobbying spending by health professionals did not change, remaining at $96 million (P=.35). Regarding oncology-related lobbying, OPPOs and PPS-exempt cancer hospitals had a significant increase of 170% (P=.016) and 62% (P=.009), respectively. Per-physician spending also demonstrated an increase from $60 to $134 for OPPOs and from $168 to $226 for PPS-exempt cancer hospitals. Overall, OPPO lobbying increased as a percentage of overall physician lobbying from 1.16% in 2014 to 3.76% in 2022., Conclusions: Although overall health sector lobbying has increased, physician/health professional lobbying has remained relatively stable in recent years, spending for lobbying by OPPOs has increased. Continued efforts to understand the utility and value of lobbying in health care and across oncology are needed as the costs of care continue to increase.

Background: Studies have shown gaps in prognostic understanding among patients with cancer. However, few studies have explored patients' perceptions of their treatment goals versus how they perceive their oncologist's goals, and the association of these views with their psychological distress., Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 559 patients with incurable lung, gastrointestinal, breast, and brain cancers. The Prognosis and Treatment Perception Questionnaire was used to assess patients' reports of their treatment goal and their oncologist's treatment goal, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale was used to assess patients' psychological symptoms., Results: We found that 61.7% of patients reported that both their treatment goal and their oncologist's treatment goal were noncurative, whereas 19.3% reported that both their goal and their oncologist's goal were to cure their cancer, 13.9% reported that their goal was to cure their cancer whereas their oncologist's goal was noncurative, and 5% reported that their goal was noncurative whereas their oncologist's goal was curative. Patients who reported both their goal and their oncologist's goal as noncurative had higher levels of depression (B=0.99; P=.021) and anxiety symptoms (B=1.01; P=.015) compared with those who reported that both their goal and their oncologist's goal was curative. Patients with discordant perceptions of their goal and their oncologist's goal reported higher anxiety symptoms (B=1.47; P=.004) compared with those who reported that both their goal and their oncologist's goal were curative., Conclusions: One-fifth of patients with incurable cancer reported that both their treatment goal and their oncologist's goal were to cure their cancer. Patients who acknowledged the noncurative intent of their treatment and those who perceived that their treatment goal was discordant from that of their oncologist reported greater psychological distress.