Prostate Cancer Survivors

 

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Re: Cost of cancer drugs

G'day Terry,

If you Google "Taxotere 72 days $206 per day", the article that Jack refers to is the first search result.

Brian

Re: Cost of cancer drugs

Thanks Brian - how odd that I couldn't find it with the Medscape site search engine.

This is where it seems to me that the thinking can be misleading:

To develop the model, Dr. Guirgis used the average wholesale price in the United States for an entire treatment course of the evaluated drug, and divided this by the median overall survival gain (in days) over that seen with control as reported at the first disclosure of phase 3 clinical trials.

By looking only at the reported difference in median survival the implication is that ALL men will have that difference at that cost. But that is simply not the case at an individual level. Some men may have much longer than the median, which would reduce the 'daily cost' signifcantly if it is compared to the median survival of the control men. But some of those men would have survived longer than their median - and may in fact have lived as long as the men being given the treatment.

By the same token the man who does not make it to the median while being given the treatment - who might die well before the median would have a daily cost of at least 100% of the entire amount with no benefit.

Re: Cost of cancer drugs

Aloha Jack,
I feel it would be very difficult, considering the various forms of PCa, from man to man, case to case, to create a meaningful calculation of "cost of drug to stay alive". I suspect that as a doctor gains experience with a particular disease, only that doc could give an estimate of survival, and even then "dice roll" ...
I suspect that only when I'm in a position of being told "you are going to die soon" would I be able to worry about this type of data?
In the long run, I would hope to so engaged in living life to the best I could, that I would not worry about how much do I need to spend to stay alive a few more days, weeks, months, etc.
I feel that as each of us goes through the various & many stages of PCa, our attention & interest follow along from beginning to The End.
So, I'm not there yet,
Joe

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