Researcher warns of using under-tested drugs, cites futile treatment on his father
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| Dr. Cary Gross |
Can some cancer treatments do more harm than good?
Absolutely, indicates Cary Gross, professor of medicine and cancer researcher at the Yale University School of Medicine, in a recent article in The Washington Post.
Gross cites the case of his own 80-year-old father, who'd been treated for Hodgkin's disease and couldn't walk because of weakness when his oncologist suggested a new, expensive, risky drug that was covered by insurance.
The oncologist was afraid chemo might do more harm than good but believed the "targeted therapy" treatment that used antibodies to kill only cancer cells would work.
Although the tumors shrunk at first, and Gross' father regained some strength, he experienced mild pain in his feet after a few months, followed by more severe shooting pains through his legs. Those side effects, Gross wrote in his article, again prevented him from walking and kept him bed-bound.
He subsequently died.
"The Food and Drug Administration had approved the treatment based only on a small study of about 100 patients, one-third of whom demonstrated complete remission," Gross reported.
"Although side effects were rare, the average age of patients in the study was 31. This is typical of cancer-treatment studies, which most often test new drugs in younger and healthier people — not older people with lots of medical conditions."
Gross expresses fear that "unfortunately, our government's commitment to evaluating new drugs is about to take a step backward. At a recent meeting with pharmaceutical company executives, President Trump announced he would be cutting regulations 'at a level nobody's ever seen before.'"
The FDA, he contends, "shouldn't shy away from requiring thorough evaluation of new drugs. The same level of enthusiasm and funding that goes into developing new treatments should be invested in testing whether they are safe and effective in patients outside of the initial small trials. Under-tested drugs with unclear safety profiles and efficacy should not be given to broad swaths of the population."
Other illustrations of clinic trials and their aftermath can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.
'Financial navigators' helping patients cope with high cost of cancer drugs and treatment
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| Laurie McGinley |
As soon as you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, you concentrate on survival.
Not on what that may cost.
But as soon as treatments and drugs start being prescribed, the money factor is likely to grab your attention.
Which in turn may lead to sticker shock.
Or depression.
A recent story by health-and-medicine writer Laurie McGinley in The Washington Post indicates that out-of-pocket $10,000 per month fees for a single drug isn't that unusual.
A monthly regimen of multiple drugs can run into the thousands of dollars in co-pays.
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S. Yousuf Zafar
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The Post article refers to patients suffering from "financial toxicity" — a term coined in 2013 by S. Yousuf Zafar at the Duke University School of Medicine — as well as the "mix of economic stress, anxiety and depression cancer patients often endure."
It focuses on "financial navigators [who] help people survive financially as well as medically [by taking] a highly individualized approach, working closely with patients and oncologists from the time of diagnosis and continuing through the twists and turns of a protracted illness."
As cancer costs continue to rise, and the health-care system grows more complex, the piece continues, the navigators' strategy "is to pull every lever possible to extract maximum assistance from pharmaceutical companies, the government, foundations and…hospitals."
Meanwhile, Big Pharma blames insurance companies for making patients absorb higher deductibles and co-pays.
And in a turn-around, according to McGinley, "insurers say excessive hospital charges, doctor fees and drug prices are the culprits."
Hospitals join the blame game, too. They point fingers at "pharmaceutical companies [that] are inflating prices [and insurers that] are failing to adequately cover needed treatments."
The article also quotes a Seattle researcher to the effect that "people battling cancer are, on average, about 2-1/2 times more likely to file for bankruptcy than people without cancer — and that post-bankruptcy patients are nearly 80 percent more likely to die from any cause compared with others with cancer."
"Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, wrote for male caregivers, addresses the costs of meds and treatments as well as the emotional toll on patients and their loved ones alike.
But be wary. The financial bell can be tolling for thee.
