Saladax Biomedical Blog

Dose Management = Lower Health Care Costs

The high cost of healthcare is an ongoing concern for cancer patients and their oncologists. The price of chemotherapy medications alone can be exorbitant, costing patients an average $1,600 for a 30-day prescription. Personalized dose management is one overlooked strategy for helping to minimize those rising costs.

Dose management involves the use of a precise diagnostic tool-individual drug blood level testing-that is both effective and inexpensive. It offers patients a range of advantages, including more accurate chemotherapy dosing, better clinical response, and greater survival rates. Research has shown that personalized dose management has the potential to provide these benefits while also reducing the most severe, debilitating side effects. That kind of return on investment is rare in any form of medicine and especially in oncology.

By contrast, certain oral cancer medications that oncologists and patients rely on for treatment are often extremely high-priced with minimal clinical benefit. For example, the drugs Avastin (bevacizumab) and Xeloda (capecitebine) are often used in combination with other cancer drugs to enhance treatment. Bevacizumab is purported to decrease the growth of cancer cells for patients with metastatic cancer of the colon, lung, breast and other vital organs. Yet the evidence of benefit has been questioned while the list of potential side effects (high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, vomiting) is quite long.

Simple dose adjustment to individual patient needs may lessen the need for expensive supporting medications because it helps the oncologist tailor and optimize drug dosing from the outset. With blood drug level testing, patients are more likely to get a dose that falls within the therapeutic range from the beginning and throughout the course of treatment. More appropriate dosing leads to both reduced tumor size and less toxicity. With more effective treatment patients may be less likely to require supporting medications that make up 30 percent of anti-cancer costs.

In addition to providing an alternative to high-priced drugs, the routine use of PCM Assays may also help lower medical costs by

• Reducing the need for medical interventions
• Reducing the frequency and length of hospital stays
• Lowering rates of disease relapse

Patients with any form of cancer face numerous challenges. Providing more effective treatment and lowering health care costs at the same time not only boosts patients' chance of survival but also adds to their quality of life.