Lung cancer

On February 24, 2021, NHS England published an update of the Specialized Services Policy Pipeline (covering period November 10, 2020 - February 10, 2021). Two new Clinical Commissioning Policies were added to the work program, and seven new policies were published, including stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery and proton therapy. The status of ongoing policies was updated as well.

On January 28, 2021, the Innovation Committee at the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) published the first overview of the 28 innovative projects on new forms of medical care that will be funded. The projects concerning the technologies belonging to the cardiovascular, eHealth, orthopedic, neurology, nephrology, and other technology groups received funding.

The Austrian Institute for Health Technology Assessment (AIHTA) completed a research project, “Lung cancer screening in risk groups: Systematic reviews of effectiveness and utility (part 1) and costs and budgetary consequences (part 2),” and published the reports in the mid of December 2020.

In Sensible Care projects, the Dutch Healthcare Institute, together with other parties, is investigating the possibilities for improving care pathways for patients. As of early November 2020, there are 30 ongoing projects, including two projects for assessing knee and hip osteoarthritis treatment and medicines for castration-refractory prostate carcinoma at the final evaluation phase.

In July 2020, the network of European HTA agencies, EUnetHTA, announced a final project plan of the project OTCA25 “Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) for lung, prostate, and liver cancer.”

The report presents a summary of the reimbursement situation for the use of minimally invasive treatment of lung cancer in Europe. The following procedures ware considered under the scope of analysis: cryotherapy, microwave ablation, photodynamic therapy, radiofrequency ablation of lung. Open and VATS lobectomy will be considered as a comparator. The analysis covers procedure coding, payment mechanism, reimbursement tariffs and policy restrictions in 11 EU countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It is also possible to add analysis in the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Russia and Turkey.