Posted by Michael Wonder on 11 Aug 2016
New expensive anti-cancer agents: which role Is played by quality-adjusted life-years in the selection of a specific treatment?
11 August 2016 - The main purpose of QALYs is to quantify the magnitude of clinical benefit within an analysis that examines effectiveness and cost.
Hence, the question of whether to use QALYs remains outside the field of interest of the ESMO tool but is pertinent to the application of the ASCO tool.
The main reason given for developing the ASCO tool was that patients often are confronted with enormous treatment expenses, so “the goal of describing a relationship between the cost of an agent or regimen and the clinical benefits it delivers takes on great importance.” Furthermore, the oncologist plays “an important role in providing a comparative assessment of the various treatment options available,” including “information about the clinical impact expected from the different options and their relative financial implications.”
