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The article discusses cancer health disparities among Americans and mentions about research conducted by American Association for Cancer Research, the American Cancer Society, and National Cancer Institute regarding same. Topics include higher rates of death among black Americans due to cancers; adverse differences in cancer incidence, cancer prevalence and cancer mortality among U.S. population; and Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program created by National Cancer Act of 1971.

The American College of Physicians recently highlighted the need to provide increased information comparing the effectiveness of health care interventions to ensure the rational and effective practice of medicine. Comparative effectiveness refers to the evaluation of the relative clinical effectiveness, safety, and cost of 2 or more medical services, drugs, devices, therapies, or procedures used to treat the same condition. The College further recommended the establishment of an adequately funded, trusted national entity that should prioritize, sponsor, or produce both comparative clinical and cost-effectiveness data. This article addresses the need for the proposed entity to develop cost-effectiveness information. It examines the current reluctance to develop and use cost-effectiveness in the United States; it argues for the importance of this information for all health care stakeholders; and it makes specific recommendations regarding how this information can best be made available and used for the good of the public and our patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the author's experience on the discovery of cisplatinum as an effective drugs in the treatment of testicular cancer. It was during his training at a National Cancer Institute facility in Baltimore where a new drug was found to be effective in the treatment of testicular cancer. An overview of how the drug was discovered is offered. The author also hopes that by emphasizing investment in medical prevention and research, there would be more helpful discoveries.

The article focuses on how Dana Reeve's death from lung cancer sparked the need to better understand the causes of lung cancer in people who have no known exposures to cigarettes. The death of a celebrity like Reeve increases public awareness of what they do not know and what they need to learn. Cigarette smoking remains the number of cause of lung cancer, and lung cancer remains the number one cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Thus, there is a need to communicate the importance of smoking cessation to the public.

Digital health advances have transformed many clinical areas including psychiatric and cardiovascular care. However, digital health innovation is relatively nascent in cancer care, which represents the fastest growing area of health-care spending. Opportunities for digital health innovation in oncology include patient-facing technologies that improve patient experience, safety, and patient-clinician interactions; clinician-facing technologies that improve their ability to diagnose pathology and predict adverse events; and quality of care and research infrastructure to improve clinical workflows, documentation, decision support, and clinical trial monitoring. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated shifts of care to the home and community dramatically accelerated the integration of digital health technologies into virtually every aspect of oncology care. However, the pandemic has also exposed potential flaws in the digital health ecosystem, namely in clinical integration strategies; data access, quality, and security; and regulatory oversight and reimbursement for digital health technologies. Stemming from the proceedings of a 2020 workshop convened by the National Cancer Policy Forum of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, this article summarizes the current state of digital health technologies in medical practice and strategies to improve clinical utility and integration. These recommendations, with calls to action for clinicians, health systems, technology innovators, and policy makers, will facilitate efficient yet safe integration of digital health technologies into cancer care., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

As cancer detection and treatment improve, the number of long-term survivors will continue to grow, as will the need to improve their survivorship experience and health outcomes. We need to better understand cancer and its treatment's short- and long-term adverse consequences and to prevent, detect, and treat these consequences effectively. Delivering care through a collaborative care model; standardizing information offered to and collected from patients; standardizing approaches to documenting, treating, and reducing adverse effects; and creating a data infrastructure to make population-based information widely available are all actions that can improve survivors' outcomes. National policies that address gaps in insurance coverage, the cost and value of treatment and survivorship care, and worker benefits such as paid sick leave can also concurrently reduce cancer burden. The National Cancer Policy Forum and the Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine sponsored a virtual workshop on "Addressing the Adverse Consequences of Cancer Treatment," November 9-10, 2020, to examine long-term adverse consequences of cancer treatment and to identify practices and policies to reduce treatment's negative impact on survivors. This commentary discusses high-priority issues raised during the workshop and offers a path forward., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)