CANCER TREATMENTS are going to get significantly more expensive with implications for patients’ access to them and for health insurance costs, one of the foremost oncologists in the State has said.
Dr Bryan Hennessy, consultant medical oncologist at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, and senior lecturer in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, was speaking yesterday at a conference hosted by the Irish Cancer Society.
He said while cancer treatment over the past number of decades was based on chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy in combination or alone, these were “associated with side effects, such as damage to bone marrow and hair loss”.
New treatments were being developed based on growing understanding of how cancer cells grow and develop. “If we can understand what drives a cancer cell to grow we can treat it in a targeted way,” said Dr Hennessy. “This allows us to develop effective cancer treatments without the side-effects.”
All cancers were different, however, and the “wirings” and proteins that needed to be targeted to make the cancer cells die would differ from cancer to cancer.
“These treatments are being developed with the assistance of pharma companies and academics, researchers and clinicians.
“Targeted cancer treatments, without the toxic side effects are the future and they are improving our ability to treat cancer.
“But they are expensive and they will increase the cost of treatment. What we need is funding for strong clinical trial programmes.”
Speaking to The Irish Timesafter his address, he said the cost question would be "significant" and would have to be addressed by the HSE. "I know the HSE are looking at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence approach in the UK where the NHS deems whether treatments are cost effective."
