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by DanBC
1376 days ago
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> was concerned that a cancer drug called Avastin, was not widely available in the UK One of the important points here that the "privatisation is great" people are missing is that the reason Avastin isn't used off label so much is because the makers of Avastin have already spent vast sums of money suing the NHS to stop off-label prescribing, and they refused to allow Avastin to be licensed for one common off-label use (for AMD). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30138097 https://www.hsj.co.uk/finance-and-efficiency/nhs-wins-landma... |
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/aug/24/avastin-too-...
Long story, it costs more than the national minimum wage, and on average improves the life expectancy by only 7% compared to chemotherapy without Avastin (21.3 months vs 19.9 months). Fundamentally though the sticking point is the cost. The article also says:
> Data also suggests the trio of drugs means the liver tumours of 78% of patients shrink to such a degree that they are eligible for potentially life-saving surgery.
But this seems to be limited to liver tumours, not colorectal tumours, and it doesn't give any success rate for the surgery. The implication is that the liver tumours were previously too large to operate on, but that's not clear.