This is the title of the paper I published today Journal of Market Access and Health Policy With co-authors Karim EI-Kersh, Nadine Zawadzki, Caitlin Coyle, Shurui Zhang, Dhruv Dalal, Anna Watzker and Dominic Lausch. The gist is below:
Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and cancer share high mortality and complex prognosis. Due to the rarity of PAH, these similarities may be less recognized by health care stakeholders. This study explored the similarities between PAHs and cancer in epidemiological, diagnostic, therapeutic, and health care resource utilization (HCRU) considerations. A four-step approach was employed: (1) inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied to identify potential PAH cancer analogs; (2) characteristics were categorized as epidemiological, clinical, clinical scenario and HCRU for comparison; (3) data on disease characteristics were extracted in a targeted literature review; (4) A similarity ranking was calculated as the absolute difference between the features of each cancer and PAH. Fourteen cancers met the inclusion criteria. Well-differentiated thyroid cancer (WDTC) had the highest number of features closest to PAH (5). WDTC and medullary thyroid cancer were similar to PAH in epidemiology; Gastrointestinal stromal tumor was most similar in clinical and HCRU characteristics, and anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK+) non-small-cell lung cancer and renal cell carcinoma were most similar in clinical scenario. Although no cancer fully reflects PAH, the identification of several analogs underscores the multifaceted complexity of PAH and confirms its overlap with oncological conditions. Cancer analogs may serve as a valuable framework to increase recognition of the diagnostic, therapeutic, and HRCU implications of PAHs among health care stakeholders.
You can read the full paper here.
