Discarded Targeted Oral Anticancer Medication—A Hard Pill to Swallow?
Menée dans un contexte américain, cette étude rétrospective estime les coûts associés au gaspillage de pilules lié à la modification des doses et à l'arrêt de 22 anticancéreux oraux approuvés par la "Food and Drug Administration" entre 2020 et 2022 ou couramment prescrits
Oral targeted agents for cancer are among the most expensive outpatient prescription drugs dispensed in the US. These drugs, often distributed as specialty drugs, can cost more than $170 000 per patient per year. Patients in the US pay a greater share of their health care costs than patients living in other developed countries. As a result, terms such as “financial burden,” “financial hardship,” and “financial toxicity” have risen, especially in the US, to describe the untenable phenomenon patients, particularly those treated for cancer, face: treatment can result in long-term financial hardship that may be so severe as to result in medical bankruptcy or inability to complete recommended treatment protocols. Moreover, the cost of targeted oral medications for cancer treatment continues to rise. One study using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare data reported that oral prescription drugs for leukemia increased by 27% between 2007 and 2013, reaching $2.35 billion. Another study analyzing the SEER-Medicare 5% Cancer File showed that mean 30-day total spending on targeted oral anticancer drugs more than doubled in 5 years, from $4011 in 2011 to $8857 in 2016.
JAMA Oncology , éditorial, 2022