Ittle consequence, while others play a key role in driving a tumor`s development [16]. To add still more to the therapeutic challenges, genetic and epigenetic features of an individual will also need to be taken into account in making suitable therapeutic judgments pertinent to specific cancers [17]. Steensma points out in this regard that the presence of DNMT3A, NPM1, or MLL mutations influences dose response to daunorubicin, which is used to treat AML (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia) [18]. 3. The Future of Cancer Therapy: The Economic Context No reputable researcher today believes that cancer will be defeated by some drug that will function as the proverbial magic bullet. Despite all the talk of targeted therapies and precision medicine, the biological heterogeneity of most cancers along with their genomic instability and the evolution of complex forms of resistance mean that medical researchers are faced with enormous challenges in Sodium lasalocid supplier trying to devise effective therapies, especially in a metastatic context. More precisely, the most that can be reasonably hoped for as an outcome of these efforts might be some significant prolongation of a reasonable quality of life with metastatic Pyrvinium embonate dose disease [19]. The hope of cure may only be a distant mirage, useful only for sustaining a research effort that generates some degree of clinical benefit. But there is another dimension to the challenges of cancer research that also represents an enormous challenge but that most researchers seem to ignore or dismiss. This is the economic dimension. In the very substantial review article by Lazikani et al. only a single brief sentence near the conclusion speaks to the economic dimension of cancer research and therapy. They write: Finally the cost of drug combinations must also be considered in health systems that are increasingly financially constrained [4].J. Pers. Med. 2013,The relevant economic context for this discussion can be quickly sketched. In the US total health spending in 2012 was about 2.8 trillion, or 17.8 of our GDP [20]. That can be compared to 1960 when total health spending in the US was only 26 billion, or 5.2 of GDP. That steep increase in GDP devoted to health care is what is of greatest concern to health policy analysts and policymakers generally. Over that fifty-year period of time average annual increases in health care costs have been roughly two and a half times the core rate of inflation in the economy. Numerous factors explain those increases in health care costs, but the dominant factor would be advances in medical technologies. As Daniel Callahan has argued, new medical technologies effectively create new medical needs (to be distinguished in moral terms from mere medical wants) [21]. If we were to ask in 1970 how many patients needed` bypass surgery, the correct answer would be that no one needed bypass surgery then because bypass surgery had barely been invented at the time. But in 2012 in the US we did more than 400,000 coronary bypass surgeries at a cost of 124,000 each ( 50 billion), and we did an additional 1.3 million coronary angioplasties at 60,000 each ( 78 billion) [22]. We also installed 120,000 implantable cardiac defibrillators at 134,000 each to reduce the risk of sudden death from an arrhythmic event [22]. There are 5.5 million individuals in the US at present in various stages of heart failure, and 550,000 new cases diagnosed each year. Patients in end-stage heart failure now have as a life-prolonging option the l.Ittle consequence, while others play a key role in driving a tumor`s development [16]. To add still more to the therapeutic challenges, genetic and epigenetic features of an individual will also need to be taken into account in making suitable therapeutic judgments pertinent to specific cancers [17]. Steensma points out in this regard that the presence of DNMT3A, NPM1, or MLL mutations influences dose response to daunorubicin, which is used to treat AML (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia) [18]. 3. The Future of Cancer Therapy: The Economic Context No reputable researcher today believes that cancer will be defeated by some drug that will function as the proverbial magic bullet. Despite all the talk of targeted therapies and precision medicine, the biological heterogeneity of most cancers along with their genomic instability and the evolution of complex forms of resistance mean that medical researchers are faced with enormous challenges in trying to devise effective therapies, especially in a metastatic context. More precisely, the most that can be reasonably hoped for as an outcome of these efforts might be some significant prolongation of a reasonable quality of life with metastatic disease [19]. The hope of cure may only be a distant mirage, useful only for sustaining a research effort that generates some degree of clinical benefit. But there is another dimension to the challenges of cancer research that also represents an enormous challenge but that most researchers seem to ignore or dismiss. This is the economic dimension. In the very substantial review article by Lazikani et al. only a single brief sentence near the conclusion speaks to the economic dimension of cancer research and therapy. They write: Finally the cost of drug combinations must also be considered in health systems that are increasingly financially constrained [4].J. Pers. Med. 2013,The relevant economic context for this discussion can be quickly sketched. In the US total health spending in 2012 was about 2.8 trillion, or 17.8 of our GDP [20]. That can be compared to 1960 when total health spending in the US was only 26 billion, or 5.2 of GDP. That steep increase in GDP devoted to health care is what is of greatest concern to health policy analysts and policymakers generally. Over that fifty-year period of time average annual increases in health care costs have been roughly two and a half times the core rate of inflation in the economy. Numerous factors explain those increases in health care costs, but the dominant factor would be advances in medical technologies. As Daniel Callahan has argued, new medical technologies effectively create new medical needs (to be distinguished in moral terms from mere medical wants) [21]. If we were to ask in 1970 how many patients needed` bypass surgery, the correct answer would be that no one needed bypass surgery then because bypass surgery had barely been invented at the time. But in 2012 in the US we did more than 400,000 coronary bypass surgeries at a cost of 124,000 each ( 50 billion), and we did an additional 1.3 million coronary angioplasties at 60,000 each ( 78 billion) [22]. We also installed 120,000 implantable cardiac defibrillators at 134,000 each to reduce the risk of sudden death from an arrhythmic event [22]. There are 5.5 million individuals in the US at present in various stages of heart failure, and 550,000 new cases diagnosed each year. Patients in end-stage heart failure now have as a life-prolonging option the l.
Posted inUncategorized