Mom finally received the drug we had been searching and striving to obtain, based on the suggestions of Bryn Pressnail, Mom's amazing acting oncologist in Barrie. She began taking this drug in July 2006, 15 months after her diagnosis, and three weeks before her death. The drug, called Tarceva, did not have time to work. We believe that had she had access to the drug, her quality of life would have improved immensely, and she could still be alive. We do not say this with false optimism, as a family friend, a doctor who was also diagnosed with lung cancer, had the opportunity to participate in a study using Tarceva. He continued to live for almost a decade, and during this time he continued to hike and enjoy his life at his cottage with his friends and family.
You can surely see why the lack of timely access to the drugs is our main concern. ln addition, we believe that drugs like Tarceva should be covered under OHIP if the patients meet the criteria and their lives are depending on it.
This drug we refer to is specifically for the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer and advanced pancreatic cancer patients. This is used for those patients who aren't able to take chemotherapy or receive radiation or surgery, meaning the cancer is at a very progressive stage. Tarceva has the power to prolong a cancer patient's lifeline and quality of life. It is sometimes their only hope, and unfortunately that hope has a big price tag attached to it. The average person could never afford the drug.
According to Tarceva's website, Tarceva is the first and only oral treatment and inhibitor proven to significantly prolong survival rate in second-line lung cancer patients. However, the Canadian study shows that in Ontario the drug is only getting to the third-line cancer patients, according to Bryn Pressnail. This doesn't make much sense, to distribute this to a patient whose cancer has metastasized so much so that the drug won't work to its full potential.
According to the Cancer Advocacy Coalition, statistics from their 2007 report on current incidence and mortality show that the number of lung cancer cases, both men and women, is greater than the number of either prostate or breast cancer. Additionally, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women. On the whole, there is a staggering estimated 159,000 new cases of cancer, where 73,000 deaths from cancer will occur in Canada in 2007. With those statistics, we can be sure that if hasn't already affected all of us, it will. This could be your wife, this could be your brother, it could be your daughter.