OBJECTIVES: Health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) is relevant to clinical decision-making, particularly in oncology in which treatments are often costly and the treatment landscape can be crowded and continually evolves. However, HEOR is not taught in medical schools, and clinicians report difficulty accessing this research. We aimed to quantify clinician exposure to HEOR through a large US oncology congress.

METHODS: American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting posters and publications from 2012 through 2022 were examined. Search terms included health economics, comparative effectiveness, budget impact, cost-utility, cost-effectiveness, network meta-analysis, indirect treatment comparison, and matching-adjusted indirect comparison.

RESULTS: Of the 27,744 ASCO annual meeting posters and publications from 2012 through 2022, only 0.32% and 0.35% pertained to health economics and comparative effectiveness, respectively, with little change over time. Cost-effectiveness analyses were the most common health economic publication, representing a significantly higher proportion of economic analyses than budget impact models and cost-utility analyses. Network meta-analyses were the second most common type of published HEOR analysis. While the volume of economic analyses published from 2012-2017 and 2018-2022 were similar, comparative effectiveness analyses showed an increasing trend, with the number of relevant publications nearly tripling over the same interval.

CONCLUSIONS: Although HEOR can drive value-based care and improve patient outcomes in oncology, our results suggest that limited information in this area has been presented at a large, representative clinical congress over the past 10 years. While cost-effectiveness analyses were the most common HEOR publication type in our review, comparative effectiveness publications appear to be on the rise. In 2022, the National Cancer Institute Division of Cancer Control and Population Science recommended that health economics symposia be offered as part of cancer treatment society meetings. As such, HEOR professionals should consider disseminating their research at clinical congresses in addition to HEOR-focused conferences.