The Reading Room: $93,000 cancer drug: How much is a life worth?

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nudgie
nudgie Member Posts: 1,478 Member
edited March 2014 in Colorectal Cancer #1
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/93000-cancer-drug-How-much-is-apf-2083419757.html?x=0

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  • HollyID
    HollyID Member Posts: 946 Member
    #2
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    I didn't open your link
    but I read the same article on another site.

    I had the same question before, during and after reading this. Really... how much does a life cost?

    It was interesting to know that the drug in this article didn't have a curative effect, but only extended life for a few more months and was used only in prostate cancer.

    Would I use a $93K drug to live a few months longer? No. Does insurance or medicare cover it? We'll see.

    What's also interesting is that this particular chemo is an all or nothing drug. You only get it once and it's not really a chemo drug. That's a misnomer. It's more like a vaccine to help train your body fight of cancer.
  • Buzzard
    Buzzard Member Posts: 3,043 Member
    #3
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    HollyID said:

    I didn't open your link
    but I read the same article on another site.

    I had the same question before, during and after reading this. Really... how much does a life cost?

    It was interesting to know that the drug in this article didn't have a curative effect, but only extended life for a few more months and was used only in prostate cancer.

    Would I use a $93K drug to live a few months longer? No. Does insurance or medicare cover it? We'll see.

    What's also interesting is that this particular chemo is an all or nothing drug. You only get it once and it's not really a chemo drug. That's a misnomer. It's more like a vaccine to help train your body fight of cancer.

    Its all about Greed........
    Pretty sad when they say they can give you 3 more months for $93000. Yeah right, lemme go dig up another jar in the back yard....
  • PGLGreg
    PGLGreg Member Posts: 731
    #4
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    HollyID said:

    I didn't open your link
    but I read the same article on another site.

    I had the same question before, during and after reading this. Really... how much does a life cost?

    It was interesting to know that the drug in this article didn't have a curative effect, but only extended life for a few more months and was used only in prostate cancer.

    Would I use a $93K drug to live a few months longer? No. Does insurance or medicare cover it? We'll see.

    What's also interesting is that this particular chemo is an all or nothing drug. You only get it once and it's not really a chemo drug. That's a misnomer. It's more like a vaccine to help train your body fight of cancer.

    Watch those "average"s.
    But the $93,000 is not buying 4 months life for an individual. The article says that the AVERAGE extension is 4 months, which is not the same thing at all. Some might live much longer than 4 months.

    --Greg
  • PhillieG
    PhillieG Member Posts: 4,866 Member
    #5
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    HollyID said:

    I didn't open your link
    but I read the same article on another site.

    I had the same question before, during and after reading this. Really... how much does a life cost?

    It was interesting to know that the drug in this article didn't have a curative effect, but only extended life for a few more months and was used only in prostate cancer.

    Would I use a $93K drug to live a few months longer? No. Does insurance or medicare cover it? We'll see.

    What's also interesting is that this particular chemo is an all or nothing drug. You only get it once and it's not really a chemo drug. That's a misnomer. It's more like a vaccine to help train your body fight of cancer.

    Some less, Some more
    Looks like we are back to this scenario again, doesn't it? It just goes back to a numbers game. An average is what it says it is. Some live longer than 4 months and some live shorter than 4 months. Be thankful it's only an average and not estimates or generalizations. Those are facts. :-)

    I was part of an AP story on Avastin about 6 years ago that raised the similar question. Is the high cost of treatment drugs "worth it" for the slight change in survival rate that it gave? I certainly didn't look at any statistics for extra months of life before I did the Avastin. I saw Avastin as the best chance I had to shrink the liver tumors and luckily insurance pair for it. It really seems that the closer they target the cancer cells, the more it costs you. It makes sense since more time is spent tailoring the protocol to the individual but it sure isn't right that it is how the system works.
  • PGLGreg
    PGLGreg Member Posts: 731
    #6
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    PhillieG said:

    Some less, Some more
    Looks like we are back to this scenario again, doesn't it? It just goes back to a numbers game. An average is what it says it is. Some live longer than 4 months and some live shorter than 4 months. Be thankful it's only an average and not estimates or generalizations. Those are facts. :-)

    I was part of an AP story on Avastin about 6 years ago that raised the similar question. Is the high cost of treatment drugs "worth it" for the slight change in survival rate that it gave? I certainly didn't look at any statistics for extra months of life before I did the Avastin. I saw Avastin as the best chance I had to shrink the liver tumors and luckily insurance pair for it. It really seems that the closer they target the cancer cells, the more it costs you. It makes sense since more time is spent tailoring the protocol to the individual but it sure isn't right that it is how the system works.

    The point I'm trying to make
    The point I'm trying to make here is that in deciding whether the $93,000 is worth it, you want to know how it affects your estimate of how long you'll live rather than how it affects the average survival in a group of people similar to you. The average is a fact, but that is different from the estimate. This is similar to what Stephen Jay Gould argued in his little essay "The Median Isn't the Message" (http://cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html). Gould decided that he would probably live much longer than the median 8 months for people with his type of cancer, and indeed he did live 20 years longer.

    --Greg
  • PhillieG
    PhillieG Member Posts: 4,866 Member
    #7
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    PGLGreg said:

    The point I'm trying to make
    The point I'm trying to make here is that in deciding whether the $93,000 is worth it, you want to know how it affects your estimate of how long you'll live rather than how it affects the average survival in a group of people similar to you. The average is a fact, but that is different from the estimate. This is similar to what Stephen Jay Gould argued in his little essay "The Median Isn't the Message" (http://cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html). Gould decided that he would probably live much longer than the median 8 months for people with his type of cancer, and indeed he did live 20 years longer.

    --Greg

    Number Games
    I know this is all guesstimates and averages. It's impossible to know one's outcome since we all react differently to things. Nothing is written in stone (until we die then we have headstones I guess). I personally believe that the numbers can be helpful by giving you examples of how others fared but one shouldn't think that are true for everyone. Your example of Jay Gould proves that.

    All of these types of things I think are what make cancer such a tough nut to crack. If someone breaks a bone, the methods to set the bone and let it heal are basically standard with everyone. With cancer the opposite almost is the case. A group of people can have the same cancer and stage, receive the same treatments and wind up with different results.

    As far as the $64,000 question (or in this case, the $93,000 question) goes, I think it depends on which side of the question you are on.

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