Despite improvements in diagnosis and treatment over the past several decades, breast cancer remains the most common malignancy and the greatest cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. In addition to chemotherapy and hormone therapy agents, a number of targeted drugs have been developed over the last two decades to expand the options available for treating Advanced Breast Cancer (ABC). While these therapies are associated with significant survival improvement, their cost often contributes to increased health care expenditures. In this context, health economic models that estimate the cost-effectiveness and budget impact of new interventions for breast cancer are becoming absolutely vital to ensuring high quality care that is affordable with Canadian Health Systems. In this study we will develop a ‘generalizable’ model for analyzing the costs, outcomes and budget impact for ABC. This will help inform drug funding decisions within BC as well as across the country by estimating the value added by increasingly costly new drugs for breast cancer.
Developing a robust, evidenced based approach for estimating the value added of new breast cancer drugs
BC Cancer Foundation is the fundraising partner of BC Cancer, which includes BC Cancer Research. Together with our donors, we are changing cancer outcomes for British Columbians by funding innovative research and personalized treatment and care.