New Blood Cancer Study Findings Reported from Emory University (Health Insurance Continuity and Mortality In Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults With Blood Cancer): Oncology – Blood Cancer

2024 NOV 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on Oncology - Blood Cancer is now available. According to news reporting originating from Atlanta, Georgia, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Many uninsured patients do not receive Medicaid coverage until a cancer diagnosis, potentially delaying access to care for early cancer detection and treatment. We examined the association of Medicaid enrollment timing and patterns with survival among children, adolescents, and young adults with diagnosed blood cancers, where disease onset can be acute and early detection is critical.Methods We identified 28 750 children, adolescents, and young adults (birth to 39 years of age) with newly diagnosed blood cancers from the 2006-2013 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program-Medicaid data.”

Funders for this research include California Department of Public Health pursuant, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention - USA, NCI’s SEER program.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Emory University, “Enrollment patterns included continuous Medicaid enrollment (preceding through diagnosis), newly gained Medicaid coverage (at or shortly after diagnosis), other noncontinuous Medicaid enrollment, and private/other insurance. We assessed cumulative incidence of death from diagnosis, censoring at last follow-up, 5 years after diagnosis, or December 2018, whichever occurred first. Multivariable survival models estimated the association of insurance enrollment patterns with risk of death.Results One-fourth (26.1%) of the cohort was insured by Medicaid; of these patients, 41.1% had continuous Medicaid enrollment, 34.9% had newly gained Medicaid, and 24.0% had other or noncontinuous enrollment. The cumulative incidence of all-cause death 5 year after diagnosis was highest in patients with newly gained Medicaid (30.2%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 28.4% to 31.9%), followed by other noncontinuous enrollment (23.2%, 95% CI = 21.3% to 25.2%), continuous Medicaid enrollment (20.5%, 95% CI = 19.1% to 21.9%), and private/other insurance (11.2%, 95% CI = 10.7% to 11.7%).”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “In multivariable models, newly gained Medicaid was associated with a higher risk of all-cause death (hazard ratio = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.27 to 1.53) and cancer-specific death (hazard ratio = 1.50, 95% CI = 1.35 to 1.68) compared with continuous Medicaid.Conclusions Continuous Medicaid coverage is associated with survival benefits among pediatric, adolescent, and young adult patients with diagnosed blood cancers; however, fewer than half of Medicaid-insured patients have continuous coverage before diagnosis.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Health Insurance Continuity and Mortality In Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults With Blood Cancer. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2024. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute can be contacted at: Oxford Univ Press Inc, Journals Dept, 2001 Evans Rd, Cary, NC 27513, USA.

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Xu Ji, Emory University, School of Medicine, Dept. of Pediatrics, Atlanta, GA, United States. Additional authors for this research include Shasha Bai, Ann C. Mertens, Sharon M. Castellino, Patricia Cornwell, Xinyue (Elyse) Zhang, Joseph Lipscomb, K. Robin Yabroff and Wendy Stock.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djae226. 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.

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