HCC registry to launch in Asia for better management of patients

The National Cancer Centre Singapore, Singapore Clinical Research Institute and IMS Health announced a collaboration to develop its first hepatocellular carcinoma registry in Asia via the Asian HCC Physician Network, in an effort to better manage patients, according to a press release.

The registry will be able to assist with developing different treatment patterns and strategies for HCC, assist with health care resource use and costs of treatments and offer insight to patients’ perspectives on their own treatments, according to the release.

“HCC is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and the burden of this devastating cancer is expected to increase further in coming years. The collection and analysis of epidemiologic HCC data will play a critical role in guiding future disease prevention strategies and optimizing patient management,” Teoh Yee Leong, CEO of Singapore Clinical Research Institute, said in the release.

The collaboration, led by Pierce Chow, senior consultant surgeon at the National Cancer Centre Singapore and chairman of the Physician Network, will not only provide invaluable information to the pharmaceutical industry, governmental and insurance payers and physicians, but also can assist policymakers and health care professionals to create strategies to manage patients with HCC, according to the release.

Using this real world data, government planning agencies and pharmaceutical companies can use analytics to establish clinical development and product strategies, insurance payers will have a better understanding of the burden of HCC and policymakers will be able to understand the budget impact to perfecting public health policies.

Physicians will also be able to use this data to better strategize and treat their patients with HCC.

Chow stated in the release that a fresh outlook on the epidemiology and treatment of HCC is needed.

”Real world data on the presentation, clinical trajectory and management of HCC in the Asia-Pacific must be prospectively collected on the ground if we were to improve public health measures and develop effective public health strategies,” Chow said in the release.

The release stated that previous studies have contributed to the knowledge of HCC epidemiology. However, there have been limitations associated with the current available data due to the fact that the previous studies were performed various times in the past, different methodologies were used and with diverse patient populations.

“This information gap prevents estimation of current and future disease burden and impedes efforts to lobby health policymakers to improve public health measures, as given the size of Asia-Pacific populations, prevention rather than treatment of noncommunicable diseases remains key,” Teoh said in the release.

Disclosure: Healio.com/Hepatology was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures at the time of publication.