Using Real-World Data to Improve Cancer Care Delivery, Precision Medicine

Real-world data can help cancer researchers unlock key insights, including those related to underrepresentation in clinical trials, that have the potential to significantly improve the quality of care delivery in precision medicine. As efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate cancer, such as President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, gain traction, providers are tasked with finding ways to improve cancer care delivery and research. As a result, the healthcare industry has seen significant progress in the areas of precision medicine and personalized cancer care.

Despite these advances, data issues continue to be a major obstacle for researchers looking to enhance cancer care. Gabrielle Rocque, MD, a breast medical oncologist and health services researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, sat down with HealthITAnalytics to discuss how real-world data use helps address some of these challenges and how she uses this data in her research.

Real-world data is particularly useful for researchers like Rocque, as it provides some advantages that other types of data don’t. Rocque’s research is heavily focused quality of care delivery, which is assessed in many clinical trials. But these assessments, through which data insights are gleaned, can be impacted by patient demographics. In a recent project, Rocque and her team utilized real-world data to understand outcomes for those typically underrepresented or not represented in clinical trials, such as individuals at both ends of the age spectrum and people of color. Researchers also looked at outcomes for patients whose abnormal lab results or diagnosis of a second cancer would typically exclude them from clinical trials.