Overview
Health technology assessment (HTA) agencies around the world increasingly rely on real-world evidence (RWE) to understand how cancer treatments perform in real-world populations. Often HTA bodies prefer data collected locally or regionally, due to differences in healthcare systems, patient populations, and treatment practices. However, this creates a challenge when local data are limited or missing, raising the question: can RWE from one country be reliably used to inform decisions in another?
The FORUM research consortium is addressing this gap by conducting benchmarking studies that compare health outcomes across countries using real-world data. Early research has shown that, after adjusting for key differences, survival outcomes for cancer patients in the US can closely match those in Canada and the UK, suggesting that well-adjusted RWE may be “transportable” across borders. Expanding this research will improve understanding of when and how evidence is transportable in oncology, and whether there are circumstances in which underlying differences in healthcare systems necessitate the use of local data.
Why this matters
As cancer care becomes more global and data-driven, the ability to use RWE from different countries could help fill evidence gaps and support faster, more informed HTA decisions—especially when local data are lacking. The FORUM is building a framework comparing outcomes across diverse healthcare systems, identifying key variables for adjustment and developing guidelines for when and how non-local data can be used. This work has the potential to improve access to new treatments and ensure that patients everywhere benefit from the latest advances in oncology care.