Costly Cancer Drug Offers Hope, but Also a Dilemma

Costly Cancer Drug Offers Hope, but Also a Dilemma

Above is a link from the New York Times on Avastin, a costly cancer drug.

The critics of integrative medicine have long been raising the lack of evidence as a reason for their skeptism. However, it comes to light that the lack of evidence of effectiveness is not limited to complementary and alternative medicine modalities.

Avastin which can cost up to $ 9000 per month. About 100,000 people take Avastin in the U.S. currently. The total amount spent for Avastin last year is estimated to top 2.3 Billion dollars.

According to the NY Times, "But there is another side to Avastin. Studies show the drug prolongs life by only a few months, if that. And some newer studies suggest the drug might be less effective against cancer than the Food and Drug Administration had understood when the agency approved its uses." This is to say that there may not be a clear benefit of Avastin for effectiveness. In treatment of an illness, there are other considerations other than effectiveness. These are also referred as "Quality of Life."

Given the on going financial crisis in health care due to unaffordability, this is an example where the critics of integrative medicines need to focus on evidence and conventional medicine. Dr. Andrew Weil advocates that there needs to be a logical way for us to evaluate the evidence. The more potential harm an agent can cause, the more rigorous evidence should be. In contrast to medications, many integrative therapeutics are less invasive and focus on improving quality of life.

I spent two years at San Diego State University for Masters in Public Health where I was educated in how to evaluate the evidence presented in a study. A result of my degree was the development of ability to discern if a treatment was effective reviewing all evidence in the scientific literature. This helped me to author more than 20 articles reviewing effectiveness of integrative medicine modalities using the scientific method.

In Georgia Integrative Medicine, we do our best to practice an evidence based medicine and we are mindful of the cost-effectivenss as well as cost-quality of life issues. Our evidence is our patients who get well and make the world a better place to be.