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- Advanced Lung Cancer Benefits Little from Expensive New Drugs-
Advanced Lung Cancer Benefits Little from Expensive New Drugs-
Expensive Lung Cancer Drugs are the Main Reason Why I Cancer Coach. Learn What Therapies, Conventional or Non-Conventional, New or Old, are the most Effective-
Lung cancer is an aggressive, complicated cancer. If your lung cancer is advanced then you are in a hurry to identify therapy that may work for you. As the articles linked below point out, oncologists may be giving expensive new drug therapies to people who may not benefit from them.
I think it was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a difference result. This is how I view conventional, standard therapies that produce disappointing five-year survival rates.
Your challenge is to figure out what therapies-conventional, non-conventional, new, old, offer you the best chance for survival.
- Evidenced integrative therapy such as curcumin and paclitaxel may be more effective, cause less collateral damage and be less expensive for you.
- Anti-Cancer nutrition may provide a complimentary therapy before, during and after integrative lung cancer therapies.
My point is for you to consider thinking outside the standard therapies for lung cancer.
I am a long-term survivor of a different but equally complicated cancer. Cancer patients and survivors must gain control of their cancer quickly in hopes of making the best decisions for themselves.
If you would like to learn more about both conventional and non-conventional lung cancer therapies, scroll down the page, post a question or a comment and I will reply to you ASAP.
Thanks,
David Emerson
- Cancer Survivor
- Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading:
- Early Lung Cancer Therapies Reduce Cancer Deaths Significantly
- Early Lung Cancer, SBRT if Surgery is Not an Option
- The Cure for Lung Cancer May Be in Fish Oil
- Fish Oil Improves Response to Chemo, Improves OS for Lung Cancer Patients
New drugs, higher costs offer little survival benefit in advanced lung cancer
“According to a University of Colorado Cancer Center study published this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, (attached below) a decade that saw the development of new therapies for non-small cell lung cancer resulted in little survival benefit for patients with advanced-stage disease.
In 22,163 patients treated between 2000 and 2011 with newly approved therapies including pemetrexed, erlotinib, or bevacizumab, survival increased by a median 1.5 months...
What we see here doesn’t definitively mean these drugs are unsuccessful. It means that despite their promise in clinical trials, they haven’t made a survival difference in the population. That may be because oncologists are giving them to people who will not benefit.
Patients with cancer are 2.5 times more likely to declare bankruptcy than patients who have not had cancer. Bradley points out that in an era of rising drug costs and a higher financial burden placed on patients, treatment often costs $30-40K in out-of-pocket expenses.
“When you talk with patients, leaving their family in financial distress is an important concern,” Bradley says…”
Antineoplastic Treatment of Advanced-Stage Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer: Treatment, Survival, and Spending (2000 to 2011)
Purpose-Multiple agents for advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been approved in the past decade, but little is known about their use and associated spending and survival…
Results-During the 12-year study period, a marked shift in treatment occurred along with a rapid adoption of pemetrexed (39.2%), erlotinib (20.3%), and bevacizumab (18.9%) and a decline in paclitaxel (38.7%), gemcitabine (17.0%), and vinorelbine (5.7%; all P < .05).
The average total days on therapy increased by 5 days (from 103 to 108 days). Patients who received bevacizumab, erlotinib, or pemetrexed had the longest treatment durations on average (approximately 146 days v 75 days for those who did not receive these agents). Approximately 44% of patients received antineoplastic agents in the last 30 days of life throughout the study period. Acute inpatient spending declined (from $29,376 to $23,731), whereas outpatient spending increased 23% (from $37,931 to $46,642). Median survival gains of 1.5 months were observed.
Conclusion- Considerable shifts in the treatment of advanced-stage NSCLC occurred along with modest gains in survival and total Medicare spending. More precise outcome information is needed to inform value-based treatment decisions for advanced-stage NSCLC…”