Cost of Failed Cancer Treatments Hit $90 Billion
March 17, 2010
USA Today
By: Liz Szabo
The cost of cancer treatment is “skyrocketing” — both for individual patients and the nation, a new analysis shows.
From 1990 to 2008, spending on cancer care soared to more than $90 billion from $27 billion. The increase was driven by the rising costs of sophisticated new drugs, robotic surgeries and radiation techniques, as well as the growing number of patients who are eligible to take them, says Peter Bach of New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, co-author of an analysis in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
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Many older, frailer patients — who might not have been considered strong enough to weather traditional surgery — now have the option to have less invasive operations or more tightly focused radiation treatments, the analysis says.
More of these patients also are able to have chemotherapy, both because of new treatments as well as “supportive” drugs to manage chemo’s side effects, such as nausea.
From 1991 to 2002, for example, the proportion of breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy doubled, to about 24%. The cost of care for each patient also doubled, from $6,642 to $12,802, the analysis says.
Those increases are “unsustainable,” says John Seffrin, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society, who wasn’t involved in the study.
“Growing numbers of people simply can’t afford to get the care we know they need,” Seffrin says. “We hear about a growing number of people turning down treatment.”
Charities are struggling to keep up with requests for help. In the past, the American Cancer Society could help one in five patients pay for health care bills. Today, the society can help only one in six, says Seffrin, who notes that the poor economy only adds to cancer patients’ hardships.
The social service group CancerCare helped 13% more people in 2009 than the year before and distributed nearly $4.4 million. Both CancerCare and American Cancer Society have set up organizations to help insured people with co-pays.
One in four cancer patients or their families said they used up all or most of their savings to pay for treatment, according to a 2006 survey by USA TODAY, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.
A spate of new drugs for advanced colorectal cancer also has helped patients live slightly longer but at great cost, says David Howard of Emory University, author of a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Drugs approved in the past decade extended these patients’ survival in 2005 to about 16 months — an improvement of 7 months — at an additional cost of $37,100 a patient, the study says.
Howard and Bach agree that doctors and drug companies today have no incentive to lower prices.
Cancer specialists can make more money by prescribing more expensive drugs, Bach says. Studies show that doctors who are “generously” reimbursed tend to prescribe more costly therapies.
The use of hormone-suppressing drugs for prostate cancer, for example, fell 14% in just two years after Medicare slashed what it was paying doctors, according to a 2008 study in Cancer.
“Right now, there are no economic incentives to use resources wisely,” Bach says.
Click here for the full report.
Chemotherapy for Dogs Approved by FDA
October 30, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The FDA has given its approval to the first chemotherapy drug developed specifically for dogs.
“This cancer drug approval for dogs is an important step forward for veterinary medicine,” said Bernadette Dunham of the FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine. “Prior to this approval, veterinarians had to rely on human oncology drugs, without knowledge of how safe or effective they would be for dogs. Today’s approval offers dog owners, in consultation with their veterinarian, an option for treatment of their dog’s cancer.”
The drug, produced by Pfizer, is called toceranib phosphate and will be marketed under the name Palladia. In the family known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors, Palladia attacks tumor cells directly while also cutting off the blood supply that they need to grow.
While chemotherapy has been available to pet owners for many years, veterinarians have only been able to prescribe drugs tested on humans, with no guarantee that they would work in dogs or other pets. According to the canine cancer awareness nonprofit Georgia’s Legacy, pet owners choosing to treat their dogs for cancer “should be prepared to spend several thousand dollars in the course of your dog’s treatment, especially if you go through chemotherapy.”
Pfizer has not yet revealed how much Palladia will cost. Pet owners in the United States currently spend $12.2 billion on veterinary medicine per year, contributing to an increasing market for pet insurance.
Palladia has been approved only for the treatment of canine cutaneous cancer, which accounts for one in five dog skin cancers. Like most forms of cancer, this variety can spread to other parts of the body if left untreated.
In clinical trials, Palladia slowed or stopped cutaneous tumor growth in 60 percent of pups treated with it. The most common side effects included bloody stool, diarrhea, lameness, loss of appetite and weight loss.
Click here for the full report
Wine Helps Fight Cancer?
October 27, 2009
MSNBC
Reuters
Cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment may want to sip some red wine before treatment.
A study in women with breast cancer found that drinking red wine can help limit the toxic effects of radiation therapy.
“The possibility that particular dietary practices or interventions can reduce radiation-induced toxicity is very intriguing,” Dr. Gabriella Macchia, of Catholic University, Campobasso, Italy, noted in an email to Reuters Health.
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It’s already known that some wine components may protect against the harmful effects of radiation. These components include polyphenols in particular, and the tannins.
In the current study, Macchia and colleagues evaluated the potential protective effects of varying levels of self-reported red wine consumption in 348 women treated with radiation therapy after breast cancer surgery.
The findings were “interesting,” Macchia said.
The incidence of radiation-induced skin toxicity greater was 38.4 percent in non-drinkers, 31.8 percent in women drinking only half a glass of wine daily, 13.6 percent in those drinking one glass daily, and 35 percent in those drinking two glasses daily.
Women who drank only one glass daily had a much lower risk of suffering skin effects from radiation therapy. Specifically, their risk of significant skin toxicity was about 75 percent less than that in non-drinkers, the researchers found.
“If wine can prevent (radiation)-induced toxicity without affecting antitumor efficacy, as we observed, it also has the potential to enhance the therapeutic benefit in cancer patients without increasing their risk of serious adverse effects,” Macchia said.
“The possible protective effect of wine, which we assessed only in women with breast cancer, should also be evaluated in male and female patients with other types of tumors (e.g., prostate carcinoma) who are undergoing radiotherapy,” she concluded.
Click here for the full report.
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