Treating childhood cancer in developing countries less expensive than believed
(Medical Xpress)—The assumption that childhood cancer in developing countries is prohibitively expensive to treat is challenged by new research contributed to by the University of Sydney.
"Our findings mean it is time to re-evaluate global health policy," said Dr Alexandra Martiniuk from the University's School of Public Health and The George Institute. Dr Martiniuk is an author on the study, just published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Worldwide an estimated 175,000 children are diagnosed as having cancer each year, approximately 90 percent of them living in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).
"The issue of which childhood diseases should have their treatment prioritised in the developing world is a confronting one," said Dr Martiniuk.
In Australia, America and other high-income countries, about 90 percent of children with the most common types of cancer survive long term. In LMIC the survival rates drop to between five and 40 percent.
"Resource-intensive medical services, such as chemotherapy and hospitalisation, are needed to cure childhood cancers so financial constraints are often cited as a barrier to their treatment in LMIC," said Dr Martiniuk.
"But this study confronts that thinking by using case studies in Brazil and Malawi to show treatment of childhood cancer can, using accepted world standards, be considered very cost effective."
The researchers investigated the balance between health gains and financial costs by calculating the cost effectiveness of treatment of two kinds of childhood cancer: acute lymphocytic leukaemia in Brazil and Burkitt lymphoma in Malawi.
"Examining the actual costs to treat a child with cancer in Brazil and Malawi using globally recognised comparison ratios we determined that the cost of treating a child with leukaemia in Brazil at US$16,700," said Dr Martiniuk.
"This is well below the globally recognised 1:1 ratio considered very cost effective."
The medical response for childhood cancers in the developed world includes intensive treatment, extensive support care and multiple hospital stays and is often considered prohibitively expensive for developed countries.
The study contradicts this assumption by showing that when a short course of treatment was used in Malawi for one month, 48 percent of children were cured. The cost of chemotherapy and supportive care drugs in this instance was reported as less than US$50 a child, representing less than one percent of the World Health Organisation's calculated threshold for very cost effective treatment.
"Ultimately the decision about whether to treat childhood cancers in LMICs is complex and does not depend solely on costs. Many childhood cancers are curable but the overall burden of these diseases for a country is often less visible than, for example, HIV or tuberculosis," said Dr Martiniuk.
"This is probably due to many factors including a diagnosis of the child with cancer being delayed or never being made."
"Many LMIC governments cannot implement cost effective interventions because of limited resources. Whether the funds used to cure one child with cancer could have saved more lives if they had been spent on other medical treatments is a question each country must consider."
More information: adc.bmj.com/conten… -301419.full
Journal reference:
Archives of Disease in Childhood
Provided by
University of Sydney
-
Cancer Research UK launches trial of new drug to treat acute childhood leukaemia
Jan 27, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Guardian of genome predicts treatment outcomes for childhood cancer
Nov 05, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
How useful are short-term medical missions?
May 30, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
More than 33,000 childhood cancer survivors living in the UK
Nov 14, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Cardiovascular disease causing increasing inequity between rich and poor
Dec 02, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
How can there be a term called "intestinal metaplasia" of stomach
May 21, 2013
-
Pressure-volume curve: Elastic Recoil Pressure don't make sense
May 18, 2013
-
If you became brain-dead, would you want them to pull the plug?
May 17, 2013
-
MRI bill question
May 15, 2013
-
Ratio of Hydrogen of Oxygen in Dessicated Animal Protein
May 13, 2013
-
Alcohol and acetaminophen
May 13, 2013
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
Japan hospital tests powerful breast cancer therapy
A Japanese cancer specialist said Wednesday she has started the world's first clinical trial of a powerful, non-surgical, short-term radiation therapy for breast cancer.
Cancer
9 minutes ago |
not rated yet |
0
Small cancer risk following CT scans in childhood and adolescence confirmed
The gap between life expectancy in patients with a mental illness and the general population has widened since 1985 and efforts to reduce this gap should focus on improving physical health, suggest researchers in a paper ...
Cancer
13 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Changing cancer's environment to halt its spread
By studying the roles two proteins, thrombospondin-1 and prosaposin, play in discouraging cancer metastasis, a trans-Atlantic research team has identified a five-amino acid fragment of prosaposin that significantly reduces ...
Cancer
14 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Novel RNA-based classification system for colorectal cancer
A novel transcriptome-based classification of colon cancer that improves the current disease stratification based on clinicopathological variables and common DNA markers is presented in a study published in PLOS Medicine this w ...
Cancer
14 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Low radiation scans help identify cancer in earliest stages
A study of veterans at high risk for developing lung cancer shows that low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) can be highly effective in helping clinicians spot tiny lung nodules which, in a small number of patients, may indicate ...
Cancer
16 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Italy approves law on controversial stem cell therapy
Italian lawmakers on Wednesday gave their final approval to a law that allows limited use of a controversial type of stem cell therapy which has been condemned by many scientists but has given hope to families of terminally-ill ...
Portland, Ore., rejecting water fluoridation
(AP)—The mayor of Portland, Ore., has conceded defeat in an effort to add fluoride to the city's drinking water.
Mysterious illness kills two in southeast Alabama
(AP)—Alabama health officials say a mysterious respiratory illness has left five people hospitalized and two dead in the southeastern part of the state.
Targeting the X-factor to tackle cardiovascular disease
New research at The University of Nottingham aimed at preventing harmful blood clots associated with heart disease and stroke has recently received a major funding boost from the British Heart Foundation.
Study focuses on new mums' sleepiness and injury risk on the road
New mothers throughout Australia are needed to help QUT sleep researchers investigate whether the disrupted sleep experienced by mothers when caring for their new baby raises the risk of injury while driving.
Study says empathy plays a key role in moral judgments
Is it permissible to harm one to save many? Those who tend to say "yes" when faced with this classic dilemma are likely to be deficient in a specific kind of empathy, according to a report published in the scientific journal ...