By Lauran Neergaard
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — You’ve just been diagnosed with cancer, and the doctor is discussing treatment options. Should the cost be a deciding factor?
Chemotherapy costs are rising so dramatically that later this year, oncologists will get their first guidelines on how to have a straight talk with patients about the affordability of treatment choices, a topic too often sidestepped.
“These are awkward discussions,” says Dr. Allen Lichter of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which is writing the guidelines. “At least we can bring this out in the open.”
It’s a particular issue for patients whose cancer can’t be cured but who are seeking both the longest possible survival and the best quality of life — and may be aware it could mean bankrupting their families.
The prices can be staggering. Consider: There are two equally effective options to battle
metastatic colon cancer, the kind spreading through the body — but one costs $60,000 more than the other, says Dr. Leonard Saltz of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
What’s the difference? The cheaper one, irinotecan, causes hair loss that makes it impossible for people trying to keep a job to hide their cancer treatment, he explains. The pricier oxaliplatin can cause nerve damage in hands and feet that might make it a worse option for, say, a musician or computer worker.
Saltz offers a tougher example: A drug for pancreatic cancer can cost $4,000 a month. Yet while Tarceva has offered some people help, research suggests that extra survival on average is a few weeks.
Drug prices are a growing issue for every disease, especially for people who are uninsured. But cancer sticker shock is hitting hard now, as a list of more advanced biotech drugs have made treatment rounds costing $100,000, or even more, no longer a rarity. Also, patients are living longer, which is good news but means they need treatment for longer periods. The cost of cancer care is rising 15 percent a year, Lichter notes.
“As long as a therapy provides a benefit, it will tend to be offered to patients. Whether it’s a small benefit or a moderate benefit, it may be offered with the same level of enthusiasm,” says Dr. Neal J. Meropol of Philadelphia’s Fox Chase Cancer Center, who is leading the panel writing the new guidelines.
The idea: treat cost essentially as another side effect to weigh in choosing a therapy.
Even the well-insured are feeling the bite.
When Medicare began its Part D prescription coverage, retiree Helen Geiger of Whiting, N.J., paid for a premium plan and put it to good use when she was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.
In renewing the prescription plan last year, the 71-year-old Geiger didn’t notice that Thalomid coverage had been changed. It now was classified a specialty drug, costing a $1,051 monthly co-pay that she couldn’t afford.
“You don’t need this kind of stress when you’re sick,” said Geiger.
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Excellent post! Thank you!
Yes, definately a good post, but my mind always goes back to prevention. If we put just a small amount of money into the education of healthy lifesytles and ways to prevent illness and disease, perhaps this would not really be such a big issue for a large number of individuals.
Also there are many indivuals who have been diagnosed with very critical illness and have opted to seek alternative approaches, many which have been successful. If it comes down to an individual accepting the belief that they will not be able to beat the illness, why spend all that money? Why not select some more cost effective therapies that may provide a better quality of life or more of an extension on the “supposed” time left.
A few years back I came across the healing journey of Jerry Brunetti, he was told that without chemotherapy treatment he would be dead in as little as six months from an aggressive form of lymphoma. He opted not to travel that route, and instead set out on his own journey seeking advice, treatments, alternative protocols and hands-on care from a wide variety of sources. This was over 5years ago.
He has an excellent video called Cancer, Nutriton and Healing that outlines what he did. This past December my husband and I had the opportunity to speak with him and hear his awesome lecture at the ACRES USA conference in KY.Stories like Jerry’s are out there, passed around through the grassroots organizations but never seem to be given the spotlight like the tradtional treatment approaches do. I am not suggesting that there are no benefit to tradtional approaches, what I am suggesting is that more of a balance is needed, more willingness to REALLY look at the value that a treatment plan has for an individual, and not assume that the pharmaceutical approach to medical issues is the number one way to go.
I am not on any mediations, when I don’t feel well, I try to figure out what is out of balance in my life and how to correct it…I take a look at my attitude, my nutrtional habits, the supplements I am taking, the environment I place myself in and then try to make the adjustment. Fortunaely this approach has worked for me. I moved in this direction as I watched the decline of people around me who needed to take a certain medication for one problem which then continued to evolve into more meds, to counteract the first med, the cycle spining on and on, and the health of individual not getting any better. I choose to go a different way.
Thanks for this post, it may open the eyes of many to look for their own truth.