Posted on 06/11/2010 8:25:00 AM PDT by markomalley
LONDON – Britain's health watchdog on Thursday recommended against buying a breast cancer drug for patients with advanced disease.
In a statement, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said that lapatinib, sold as Tyverb by GlaxoSmithKline PLC, is not cost-effective. The drug costs about 1,600 pounds ($2,300) per treatment course in Britain. Glaxo said the decision would mean about 2,000 patients in the U.K. will no longer get the drug.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
gee, the ass. press. doesn’t comment on how many of those 2000 lives might be saved if this drug were used.
Those lives are too expensive for “society” (Govt) to save, since “society” (Govt) is footing the bill it gets to decide whether you are worth the odds
definitely the premise of rationing in obamacare
Oppps that treatment is too expensive so you die.
Notice that this is only possible because of the perception that people are no longer paying for their own health care - “someone else” is paying even though the patient’s lifetime payments into the system may be more than enough to cover the treatment. This is the most insidious thing about socialized medicine.
Does the public defender ever refuse to advocate for a criminal because it’s not cost effective?
Do we see a problem here?
Any comment from the NAGs?
(crickets chirping...)
Excellent analogy!
Does anyone know if it’s possible, or legal to buy private insurance in the UK. I understand that in some countries with socialized medicine, it is actually illegal to sell private insurance. I’m just not sure if that’s the law in the UK.
The UK just doesn’t learn.
They already have the lowest cancer survival rate in Europe, and WAY lower than the US.
The UK is a dying country, that will go muslim in 20 years. That’s what happens to a society that forsakes our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, and doesn’t even care about the lives of its own citizens.
The UK didn’t even have the “NICE” death panel until 1999. It was instituted by Tony Blair, the murderer of thousands of Orthodox Christian Serbs. (It figures, doesn’t it?) They’re saving scads of money, but losing their whole country and their souls as well.
The US would do well to UTTERLY REPUDIATE the horrible death plan known as “obamacare”, and to UTTERLY REPUDIATE those who instituted in and support it!!! Let’s not only save ourselves from the fate of the UK, but show our British cousins the way back to life!!!!
....a treatment that may only extend life by months...
Going back to the late 1940s, EVERY new cancer treatment that was first introduced “only extended life by months”.
However, as oncologists learned how to use the new treatments more effectively, they got better results with these drugs. In many cases, they now use them to give years of remission, or even cures!!!!
If doctors can’t use new cancer drugs on patients in their real-world practices, even if they only extend life by months, they can’t EVER develop effective new cancer treatments!
btt
Zero. This drug is used to prolong survival in advanced breast cancer. It does not save lives at all, only prolong them. It postpones the inevitable. The only published study showed it prolongs life by an average of 7 weeks. Not a very effective option.
What I don't like is the government deciding that ‘if we (the government) can't afford to provide drug/treatment X to ‘everyone’, then no one should have it’. There are lots of creative ways to make sure everyone gets what they need. Having the government in charge of health care is not one of them.
Does anyone know if it’s possible, or legal to buy private insurance in the UK?
************
It is legal, and it’s often offered as a benefit to employees as well as available to buy individually. I understand it’s pretty cheap, too.
You also have the option of paying cash for services denied by the NHS, just like you can do here when your private health insurance (or Medicare or Medicaid) refuses to pay for certain treatments.
That is 7-8 months, not weeks
One could argue that keeping a dying patient in a nursing home or intensive care in hospital, might be equally as non cost effective. Where do we draw the line at quantifying the cost of the last 8 months of life?
meanwhile various drug combinations are still in research with this drug, and on other types of cancer. ask a cancer patient if she wants another 6 months of time
If govt disallowed patients to have life extending drugs as “not cost effective” - we’d never have much chance to advance in treatment, would we
you echo my point
Q-TWiST analysis of lapatinib combined with capecitabine for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. - Sherrill B - Br J Cancer - 2-SEP-2008; 99(5): 711-5 (MEDLINE® is the source for the citation and abstract of this record )
DOI: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6604501
Abstract:
The addition of lapatinib (Tykerb/Tyverb) to capecitabine (Xeloda) delays disease progression more effectively than capecitabine monotherapy in women with previously treated HER2+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC). The quality-adjusted time without symptoms of disease or toxicity of treatment (Q-TWiST) method was used to compare treatments. The area under survival curves was partitioned into health states: toxicity (TOX), time without symptoms of disease progression or toxicity (TWiST), and relapse period until death or end of follow-up (REL). Average times spent in each state, weighted by utility, were derived and comparisons of Q-TWiST between groups performed with varying combinations of the utility weights. Utility weights of 0.5 for both TOX and REL, that is, counting 2 days of TOX or REL as 1 day of TWiST, resulted in a 7-week difference in quality-adjusted survival favouring combination therapy (P=0.0013). The Q-TWiST difference is clinically meaningful and was statistically significant across an entire matrix of possible utility weights. Results were robust in sensitivity analyses. An analysis with utilities based on EQ-5D scores was consistent with the above findings. Combination therapy of lapatinib with capecitabine resulted in greater quality-adjusted survival than capecitabine monotherapy in trastuzumab-refractory MBC patients.
There are many articles- I read others.
Dozens of studies out there using different drug combos-
but not gonna go do the research again
but a blind study done in 2006 was halted because of the profound effects the control group getting the drug had over those who were not. All were put on the drug
You would not find that much excitement or corporate investment in a drug that extended quality of life by only 7 weeks
Just sayin
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