Private MD News

New prostate cancer meds save lives, but come with a catch

Category: Prostate

Following a positive PSA test for prostate cancer, men now have more options than ever before to treat the disease. However, some are beginning to raise concern over the sky high costs of many of these medications.

Experts told the New York Times that the Food and Drug Administration recently approved three new medications that have been shown to substantially improve prostate cancer survival rates. This is largely good news for men with prostate cancer.

But the trouble comes when you look at the price tag of these medicines. Provenge costs $93,000 for a full round of treatment, Zytiga costs $5,000 per month and Jevtana costs in the neighborhood of $8,000 every three weeks.

Joel Sendeck, an industry analyst at Lazard, told the news source that this could spell trouble for the healthcare system, particularly because the majority of men who receive these drugs are on Medicare.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 223,000 men developed prostate cancer in 2007. With these costs spread out over all these individuals, expenses could devastate state and federal budgets.