[Editorial] paywalled: Quality and value in cancer care - Lancel Oncology

 
[Editorial] Quality and value in cancer care:

"In these times of stringent financial cuts, it is more important than ever to ensure excellent value for money in health-care delivery. Those that hold the purse strings might well think that value for money equates to the lowest cost. But true economy in health services incorporates quality and efficacy of treatment. For example, an effective therapy with a lower adverse event rate is likely to be more economical than is a lower-cost drug that requires more supportive care. Identifying a biological approach for a cancer treatment inevitably stimulates a race between pharmaceutical companies to bring a drug to market, often resulting in several agents that act against the same target, but with no evidence of their relative effectiveness."