Esmo Open

In this podcast, Marina Parry, ESMO Open Digital Editor, speaks to Amanda Herbrand, Medical Oncologist Trainee working at University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, about her team’s work on off-label use (OLU) of Drug Treatments in Cancer Care, presented at ESMO Congress 2019 and a preprint of which is available on medRxiv: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/19003152v1 With new drug treatments for cancer patients constantly being investigated in clinical trials, ensuring access to the ones which prove to be effective in improving patient care is critical. These drugs are initially assessed by medical authorities for their efficacy and cost effectiveness, which means it can take time before they are approved. However, physicians will sometimes wish to use therapies which have been shown to be effective in clinical trials but without specific approval in the disease setting they are treating. This leads to off-label use (OLU) of cancer therapies, which, depending on the healthcare system, is not covered by p