Recently Diagnosed or Relapsed? Stop Looking For a Miracle Cure, and Use Evidence-Based Therapies To Enhance Your Treatment and Prolong Your Remission
Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
Click the orange button to the right to learn more about what you can start doing today.
Myeloma side effects are expensive. But what can a newly diagnosed MM patient do about it? I mean, side effects are expected, aren’t they?
Yes and no. Let me explain.
First and foremost, the study below references cancers other than MM. Therefore, it is impossible to compare apples to apples. The main benefit of the study is to make MM patients and survivors aware of the basic issues. Myeloma side effects are expensive!
I linked the video below mainly because it talks about the expense of chemo AND the expense of chemo side effects. Parris is a prostate cancer survivor so the content doesn’t really pertain to MM patients. But again, the video introduces the newly diagnosed MM patient to the main issues of their treatments.
Less chemotherapy over the course of your life as a MM patient means less toxicity which means a reduced risk of side effects. A reduced risk of side effects means fewer side effects which means less treatment costs of those side effects.
Yes, I am making generalizations here. But I think my generalizations are legit. Let me know what you think. Email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com and tell me what you think.
The actual costs of adverse events were significantly higher than the estimates in cost-effectiveness analyses, with a median difference of $17,201.
The costs of adverse events (AEs) from cancer drugs are consistently underestimated, according to findings published in JAMA Network Open.
Researchers conducted a systematic review of claims-based studies focused on AE-related costs of cancer treatment. The researchers compared estimates from cost-effectiveness analyses to actual costs and analyzed the impact of replacing the estimates with actual values for incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) at thresholds of $100,000 and $150,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY).
The analysis included 11 claims-based studies encompassing 34,022 patients and 102 cost-effectiveness analyses. The researchers evaluated AEs related to treatment of
advanced non-small cell lung cancer,
advanced melanoma,
unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma,
metastatic breast cancer,
advanced renal cell carcinoma,
resectable colorectal cancer,
and nonmetastatic prostate cancer.
The researchers found that the actual costs of AEs were significantly higher than the estimates in cost-effectiveness analyses, with a median difference of $17,201 (P =.03). Adjusting AE costs from the estimates to the actual costs led to an ICER change of $42,656 per QALY and changed the cost-effectiveness conclusions in 8 of 17 cases (47.1%).
The researchers noted that some of the differences between estimates and actual costs may be due to the different types of AE costs included in cost-effectiveness analyses. For instance, 85.3% of cost-effectiveness analyses did not consider post-progression AE costs, 87.3% did not account for AEs interrupting treatment or leading to dose reductions, and 82.8% only accounted for AEs occurring once during the first treatment cycle.
“[M]any studies did not specify AE types, focused on severe AEs, and ignored postprogression costs,” the researchers wrote. “Few considered dose modifications, treatment interruptions, or survival impacts. Most assumed AEs occurred only in the first treatment cycle, used inconsistent methods for estimating incidence and costs, and had substantial variability in unit AE costs. These findings highlight the need to improve AE cost quantification in oncology CEAs [cost-effectiveness analyses] and standardize methods for more accurate evaluations.”
Disclosures: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The study authors reported having no conflicts of interest. Please see the original reference for complete disclosures.
Myeloma side effects are expensive Myeloma side effects are expensive
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2 comments
Mary-Anne Madden says
a few months ago
In Australia I pay for treatments to elevate side effects – such as acupuncture and massage. But part of these are covered by my health insurance. Other than that my multiple myeloma treatment is free. Why do you pay for this in America. It seems you need plenty of lobbying to ensure treatments are free. We all pay tax and we have a right to ensure these dollars go to the right places. America does seem very behind in this.
Another MM survivor (Aussie) posted about this issue as well. I agree with many of the components of what is called here- “Medicare for all.” However, there are pros and cons associated with both systems. Thanks for your input.
