TREATMENT for colorectal cancer has come a long way since the mid-1990s. The best option then was a chemotherapy agent called , which let patients with metastatic tumours survive for about a year, rather than eight months if they just received palliative care. A clutch of new drugs has since doubled survival times. There is a downside, though. According to an analysis conducted in 2004 these drugs increased treatment costs 340-fold (The New England Journal of Medicine, vol 351, p 317).
It’s a similar story right across oncology. With many cancer drugs costing tens of thousands of dollars a year, they have become a flashpoint…
