Physicians prescribe 5% more cancer drugs following a pharmaceutical representitive's visit, but the practice does not appear to affect cancer patients' mortality, NPR reported April 22.
The study, published in April in National Bureau of Economic Research, used Medicare claims data and the Open Payments database, which tracks drug company payments to physicians. Researchers analyzed a 20% random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries between 2014 and 2018.
"It does not seem that this payment induces physicians to switch to drugs with a mortality benefit relative to the drug the patient would have gotten otherwise," study author Colleen Carey, PhD, an assistant professor of economics and public policy at Ithaca, N.Y.-based Cornell University, told NPR.
Patients who were prescribed new cancer drugs did not live longer, but they did not live a shorter amount of time, either, Dr. Carey said.