Srikanthan A, Gill S S, Chan K K W
Division of Medical Oncology, BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver Centre, Vancouver, BC;
Department of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, ON;
Curr Oncol. 2016 Jun;23(3):154-63. doi: 10.3747/co.23.3024. Epub 2016 Jun 9.
Concerns have been raised about the potential influence of political pressures on drug funding decisions. We evaluated the temporal relationship between cancer drug funding and provincial elections in 9 Canadian provinces.
New indications for cancer drugs between January 2003 and December 2012 were identified, and the dates of official provincial funding dates and election dates between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2014 were retrieved. The probability of drug funding announcements in the 60-day period preceding a provincial election was evaluated using binomial probability distribution analysis.
Data from 9 provinces (all Canadian provinces except Quebec) were available. During the period of interest, 69 new indications for 39 individual drugs were identified. Variation in the availability of funding dates was identified. At the time of data collection, 2 provinces did not have data available for all 69 indications. For the 9 provinces, the number of funded indications during the 60-day period preceding an election ranged from 0 to 3; however, no differences in the proportion of indications funded pre-election were identified. Additional analyses also failed to demonstrate any significant associations with the 90-day period before an election, or the 60- and 90-day periods after an election.
We observed no clear temporal relationship between provincial election dates and funding decisions in this recent Canadian sample of new indications for cancer drugs.
人们对政治压力对药物资助决策的潜在影响表示担忧。我们评估了加拿大9个省份癌症药物资助与省级选举之间的时间关系。
确定2003年1月至2012年12月期间癌症药物的新适应症，并检索2003年1月1日至2014年12月31日期间省级官方资助日期和选举日期。使用二项式概率分布分析评估省级选举前60天内药物资助公告的概率。
获得了9个省份（除魁北克省外的所有加拿大省份）的数据。在感兴趣的期间内，确定了39种药物的69个新适应症。发现资助日期的可用性存在差异。在数据收集时，2个省份并非所有69个适应症都有数据。对于这9个省份，选举前60天内获得资助的适应症数量从0到3不等；然而，未发现选举前获得资助的适应症比例存在差异。进一步分析也未能证明与选举前90天或选举后60天和90天有任何显著关联。
在这个加拿大近期癌症药物新适应症样本中，我们未观察到省级选举日期与资助决策之间存在明确的时间关系。
