Should Doctors Worry About the Cost of Extending Life?

  • by: |
  • 11/17/2015
My article in Newsweek

Oncologists are supposed to treat cancer patients. But some have decided instead to set themselves up as judges of what patients' lives are worth.

This type of bean-counting ought to be abhorrent to anyone who calls himself a physician.

A recent article in JAMA Oncology is emblematic of this strain of thinking. The piece employs a "value framework" endorsed by the American Society of Clinical Oncologists to determine what a new drug "should" cost. Once approved by the FDA, the drug in question, necitumumab, will be the first of its kind to treat stage IV squamous non-small-cell lung cancer.

The lead author of the article, Daniel Goldstein, noted that adding necitumumab to the standard combination of drugs for such patients "only" adds about two months to patients' life, on average. As a result, he calculates, necitumumab should cost $600 a month.

Put another way, Goldstein believes that each extra day of life is worth, at most, $20. About the same price as a new toaster.

Goldstein's morbid conclusion demonstrates the callousness of ASCO's value framework, which seeks to derive "appropriate" drug prices from their average effect on longevity. In the process, the framework marginalizes the value of life.

Goldstein notes that "[t]here is a desperate need to find appropriate prices for new treatments while maintaining incentives to drive game-changing innovations." Yet his approach would whittle away payments for the hardest to treat cancers and for patients who have had no real advances in care for decades.

Necitumumab is not just another drug. As Nick Thatcher, the lead investigator for the necitumumab clinical trials, observed: "I think it's important to remember we're dealing with squamous cell lung cancer," which has proved notoriously difficult to treat. "It's the first time," he notes, "that we've seen benefit in this group of patients over the last 20 or 25 years." In that context, demonstrating any effectiveness at all counts as a breakthrough.

History indicates that more profound breakthroughs will follow, as researchers build on each incremental advance. The first anti-AIDS treatments added "only" two months of life in 1987. By 2006, a combination of new drugs—tailored to the particular biology of the patients—added 15 years of life. The value framework doesn't account for increasing medical progress over time.

Moreover, the value framework does not measure the value of living longer from the patient perspective. The five-year survival rate for those diagnosed with this form and stage of lung cancer is 1 percent. Isn't every extra day with loved ones—and beating cancer—worth more than $20?

Goldstein's conclusion—that many oncology drugs in clinical practice in the United States would fare poorly in cost-effectiveness analyses—could be applied to lung cancer treatment prices as a whole.

Since 1973, the average survival generated by any type of chemotherapy is 1.7 months. The average cost of treating lung cancer patients in the last year of life is $94,000. Drugs are about 20 percent of that spending. Why not let people die 1.7 months sooner and save the money?

When insurance companies try to control costs by restricting access to treatments, they are rightly lambasted for it. Doctors who seek to determine which drugs are worth paying for are no better.

We would not countenance paying more to extend the life of a rich man than a poor one, whatever the difference in their economic "value." Nor would we deem the life of a mother of five more worth saving than that of a childless woman, without a family to mourn her passing. But it is no more acceptable to average the social value of their lives in deciding whether it's worth it to treat them.

A cynic, it is said, knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. By this measure, ASCO's framework is cynical in the extreme. The only framework worth defending is one that says life is too precious to put a price on it.
CMPI

Center for Medicine in the Public Interest is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization promoting innovative solutions that advance medical progress, reduce health disparities, extend life and make health care more affordable, preventive and patient-centered. CMPI also provides the public, policymakers and the media a reliable source of independent scientific analysis on issues ranging from personalized medicine, food and drug safety, health care reform and comparative effectiveness.

Blog Roll

Alliance for Patient Access Alternative Health Practice
AHRP
Better Health
BigGovHealth
Biotech Blog
BrandweekNRX
CA Medicine man
Cafe Pharma
Campaign for Modern Medicines
Carlat Psychiatry Blog
Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry: A Closer Look
Conservative's Forum
Club For Growth
CNEhealth.org
Diabetes Mine
Disruptive Women
Doctors For Patient Care
Dr. Gov
Drug Channels
DTC Perspectives
eDrugSearch
Envisioning 2.0
EyeOnFDA
FDA Law Blog
Fierce Pharma
fightingdiseases.org
Fresh Air Fund
Furious Seasons
Gooznews
Gel Health News
Hands Off My Health
Health Business Blog
Health Care BS
Health Care for All
Healthy Skepticism
Hooked: Ethics, Medicine, and Pharma
Hugh Hewitt
IgniteBlog
In the Pipeline
In Vivo
Instapundit
Internet Drug News
Jaz'd Healthcare
Jaz'd Pharmaceutical Industry
Jim Edwards' NRx
Kaus Files
KevinMD
Laffer Health Care Report
Little Green Footballs
Med Buzz
Media Research Center
Medrants
More than Medicine
National Review
Neuroethics & Law
Newsbusters
Nurses For Reform
Nurses For Reform Blog
Opinion Journal
Orange Book
PAL
Peter Rost
Pharm Aid
Pharma Blog Review
Pharma Blogsphere
Pharma Marketing Blog
Pharmablogger
Pharmacology Corner
Pharmagossip
Pharmamotion
Pharmalot
Pharmaceutical Business Review
Piper Report
Polipundit
Powerline
Prescription for a Cure
Public Plan Facts
Quackwatch
Real Clear Politics
Remedyhealthcare
Shark Report
Shearlings Got Plowed
StateHouseCall.org
Taking Back America
Terra Sigillata
The Cycle
The Catalyst
The Lonely Conservative
TortsProf
Town Hall
Washington Monthly
World of DTC Marketing
WSJ Health Blog