A recent study found that combination therapy against cancer are initially more expensive than a single agent therapies, while offering better outcomes for patients and are more profitable. Cancer Center Fox Chase Philadelphia simple treatments Teams explained that cancer could cost more in the long term due to expenditure on the treatment of complications of patients and cancer recurrence.
The findings were to be presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Philadelphia.
The study authors analyzed 47 months of treatment costs and clinical outcomes of 66 Medicare patients with locally advanced laryngeal cancer who participated in a clinical trial between 1991 and 1996. The trial was designed to compare three treatment regimens, two that combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy and one that is only worth of radiation.
"In terms of overall survival rates, there was no significant difference among the three treatment arms," he said in a prepared statement Dr. Andre A. Konski lead author, a radiation oncologist and director of clinical research department of radiation oncology at the Cancer Center Fox Chase.
"However, patients who received induction chemotherapy or radiation therapy as concurrent chemotherapy and radiotherapy had better results in terms of disease-free survival, local and regional control and larynx preservation," said Konski.
"In our subsequent economic analysis, these better outcomes resulted in significant savings of money being invested in the treatment of complications and recurrences that occurred with radiotherapy alone, which is less effective," he added.
Konski and his colleagues found that "radiation alone costs more for themselves (the expected average cost in the 47 months of treatment was $ 57.357) compared with the two treatment arms that included chemotherapy. The chemo and radiation combined cost a bit more ($ 57.870) and represented an incremental increase of $ 697 per life-year overall survival and $ 2.048 per year of life free of the disease. "
"Induction chemotherapy plus radiation therapy was the most profitable. At a cost of $ 49.018 47 months, this treatment saved $ 7.031 per year free of the disease and $ 9.336 per life-year overall survival, "said Konski.
