Data from University of California San Diego (UCSD) Provide New Insights into Colon Cancer (Impact of extended insurance coverage on survival outcomes among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer in Taiwan): Oncology – Colon Cancer

2025 NOV 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Immunotherapy Daily -- Current study results on Oncology - Colon Cancer have been published. According to news originating from La Jolla, California, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Predetermined treatment duration limits (PTDLs) are often used by Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Administration to contain healthcare costs, but they may compromise patient outcomes. Therefore, we studied Taiwan’s 2017 extension of the bevacizumab PTDL from 24 to 36 weeks in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) to evaluate whether prolonged treatment duration improves clinical outcomes, specifically treatment continuity, therapy duration and survival.”

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), “We identified two cohorts based on initial bevacizumab prescription dates from the Taiwan Health and Welfare Database: PTDL-24 weeks (1 April 2013-31 March 2016; n = 2051) and PTDL-36 weeks (1 April 2017-31 March 2020; n = 2484). We assessed overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS) and time on treatment (ToT) for first-line therapy over 2 years. A doubly robust approach was applied, including inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to balance covariates and Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for calendar year. A two-stage residual inclusion (2-SRI) model estimated the impact of the policy on bevacizumab duration and subsequent survival outcomes. After IPTW adjustment, baseline characteristics were well-balanced. The 36-week PTDL policy was associated with improved PFS (adjusted hazard ratio: 0.814 [95% confidence interval: 0.691-0.959]) and ToT (0.821 [0.703-0.959]), but not OS (0.926 [0.751-1.142]). The 2-SRI analysis showed the policy extended bevacizumab treatment by approximately 8 weeks and was associated with improvements in OS (0.912 [0.89-0.934]), PFS (0.941 [0.923-0.959]) and ToT (0.966 [0.95-0.984]).”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Relaxing the PTDL can extend bevacizumab treatment exposure, improving PFS and ToT.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Impact of extended insurance coverage on survival outcomes among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer in Taiwan. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 2025. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology can be contacted at: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - http://www.wiley.com/; British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology - http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2125)

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Chen-Han Chueh, Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, University of California San Diego (UCSD), La Jolla, CA, United States. Additional authors for this research include Wei-Ming Huang, Chien-Yu Tseng, Christopher N. Kaufmann, Earl J. Morris, Chiao-En Wu and Yi-Wen Tsai.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1002/bcp.70299. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

The publisher’s contact information for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology is: Wiley, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA.

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