Sunday, June 17, 2012

Epidemic of cancer and Big Pharma


Fresh numbers from here which is based on this study.

The ranks of American cancer survivors are growing, and will increase from 13.7 million in January 2012 to nearly 18 million in January 2022, according to a report from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute.

Though an aging and growing population helps explain why more people are surviving cancer, the study says that improvements in treatment and more people getting screened also play a part.


The study reports that in 2012, male survivors were most likely to have had prostate cancer, colon and rectal cancer, and melanoma; most common among female survivors were breast, uterine, and colon and rectal cancers. The American Cancer Society predicts that nearly all of those will be the most commons cancers of survivors in 2022, too.

"The reasons that some cancers are more common in survivors than they are in newly diagnosed patients is that the common cancers among survivors are typically ones that are fairly common in the population of new diagnosis," Ward said, "but they are also cancers that have a fairly high survival rate."

Well, there is no better situation for Big Pharma – the cost of treatment is skyrocketing! Do you need example? The latest one: the drug named Zelboraf, or vemurafenib, is for malignant melanoma that has spread and carries a specific genetic mutation and costs around £1,750 per patient per week.

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