Should Cost Get in the Way of Cancer Treatments?

There is more to the war on cancer than finding new treatments. When we find those treatments, can we afford them? Just as we once dreamed of space travel and have now touched the moon, some novel cancer treatments are now a reality. But just as the cost of space travel limits the adventure to a select few, is the cost of some cancer treatments prohibitive for the masses?

I understand that it is unfair to compare space travel to cancer treatment. Comparing a travel experience to surviving is definitely an oranges and apples scenario. Should cost get in the way of lung cancer treatment? Are the drugs worth the cost?

Researchers looked at the cost of a form of targeted therapy for lung cancer treatment, and pulled out their calculators in an attempt to see the big picture. They looked at the chemotherapy drug cetuximab (Erbitux) a medication that prolongs lung cancer survival 1.2 months. The cost for an 18 week course of treatment is $80,000. Based on this, they calculated that it would cost $800.000 to increase life with cancer by one year.

To get the big picture, they crunched numbers to see what it would cost to prolong the lives of 550,000 people who die in the United States yearly by one year. The answer: $440 billion.

Based on this number, these researchers made a recommendation: If treatment will extend survival less than two months, treatments should only be tested if they cost less than $20,000. This decision was not made rashly. One of the researchers is a bioethicist, and they do state that every life is of infinite value. But with the current status of our health care system, where do we draw the line?

In the past 4 years, over 90% of cancer drugs approved in the U.S. cost more than this. Other drugs that were looked at included bevacizumab (Avastin) and sorafenib (Nexavar). These drugs are less costly than Erbitux, but well over the $20,000 recommended limit.

Thinking about this puts a chasm between my heart and my brain. I wasn’t born yesterday and I understand economics, but I have known and loved people during the last 1.2 months of their lives with cancer. And I can say that those last days were totally worth the cost.

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Photo: istockphoto.com

_Source:

_{Fojo, T. and C. Grady. How Much is Life Worth: Cetuximab, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, and the $440 Billion Question Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 2009. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djp177.}