The Price of False Hope

Jame Abraham, MD

By Jame Abraham, MD, Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Medical Breast Oncology Program

It is not unusual for me to get calls and emails from patients from around the world about their cancer management. One of the emails I received was from a 50-year-old gentleman with lung cancer who lived in India. His lung cancer had spread to various organs; hence, he was staged as metastatic or Stage IV at the time of diagnosis.

According to the patient’s family he received more than 20 cycles of a regimen with bevacizumab. The addition of bevacizumab to chemotherapy offers very minimal and clinically insignificant benefit for patients with lung cancer. The retail cost of bevazicumab is approximately $4,000 for each dose in the U.S.

This patient’s journey made me think about the importance of value-based care. For him, it was the price of hope. But, unfortunately, in my opinion it is instead the price of false hope given by the medical profession.

Read the full ETHealthWorld.com column by Dr. Abraham, who is also the Co-Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Comprehensive Breast Cancer Program.