Legislative Bill to Support Veterans With Prostate Cancer
Posted: Friday, April 17, 2020
Congressmen Neal Dunn, MD (R-FL-3), and Joe Cunningham (D-SC-1) have introduced the Veterans Prostate Cancer Treatment and Research Act bill, which aims to optimize medical treatment for veterans with prostate cancer. Supported by the American Urological Association, the bill would establish a Veterans Health Administration (VHA) health-care program dedicated to providing comprehensive care for veterans with prostate cancer. Currently, the National Institutes of Health reports that prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in the VHA.
The Veterans Prostate Cancer Treatment and Research Act specifically requires the VHA:
- To create a national prostate cancer clinical pathway to cover the disease from screening to the end of life and to update it as needed.
- The pathway would strive to reflect relevant prostate cancer care guidelines.
- To develop a national prostate cancer care implementation program.
- This would be administered by a nationally recognized leader in prostate cancer care who would coordinate efforts across relevant VA entities; measure prostate cancer quality and costs; and create a national prostate cancer education plan aimed at administrators, providers, and patients.
- To design a Prostate Cancer Registry and Research Program.
- The aim of the program is to evaluate all aspects of the disease continuum from screening to end-of-life care; define optimal ways to implement recommended guidelines; coordinate care; discover new insights into treatment of the disease; and evaluate the comparative effectiveness of existing treatments for health services, basic science, as well as translational medicine and clinical trials.
