Department of Pharmacy, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, United Kingdom.
Faculty of Pharmacy, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
Front Public Health. 2021 Apr 30;9:628744. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.628744. eCollection 2021.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally accounting for more than half of deaths in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Cancer treatment is expensive and the high prices of cancer medicines have a huge impact on access in LMICs. Scarcity of pricing or affordability data is one of the major barriers in the development of effective and transparent pricing policies in LMICs. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of the literature regarding pricing, availability, affordability, and access to anti-cancer medicines in LMICs. A systematic search was conducted across six electronic databases: PubMed, Medline/CINAHL (EBSCO), Web of Science, Springer Links, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The literature (from 2015 to 2020) was reviewed to identify original research articles published in English. A total of 13 studies were included in the review with some having multiple outcomes: five studies on pricing, four studies addressed affordability, five studies reported on availability, and four studies on access to anti-cancer medicines. The studies showed that in LMICs, there are wide variations in cancer prices and availability amongst the medicine brands and across different countries, with less affordability by patients with low-income levels, sometimes leading to treatment abandonment. Given the importance of medicine availability and prices in patient access and medicine buying capacity of governments, multi-pronged policy and program approaches by multiple stakeholders are needed to ensure access to cancer medicines.
癌症是全球第二大致死原因，占低收入和中等收入国家（LMICs）死亡人数的一半以上。癌症治疗费用昂贵，癌症药物的高价对 LMICs 的可及性产生了巨大影响。缺乏定价或负担能力数据是在 LMICs 制定有效和透明的定价政策的主要障碍之一。本研究旨在对有关 LMICs 中抗癌药物的定价、可及性、负担能力和可及性的文献进行系统综述。系统检索了六个电子数据库：PubMed、Medline/CINAHL（EBSCO）、Web of Science、Springer Links、Scopus 和 Google Scholar。审查了从 2015 年到 2020 年发表的英文原始研究文章。共有 13 项研究纳入了综述，其中一些有多个结果：五项研究涉及定价，四项研究解决了负担能力问题，五项研究报告了可用性，四项研究涉及抗癌药物的可及性。研究表明，在 LMICs 中，癌症药物的价格和可用性在不同品牌和不同国家之间存在很大差异，低收入水平的患者负担能力较低，有时导致治疗放弃。鉴于药物可用性和价格对患者可及性和政府药物购买能力的重要性，需要多利益相关者采取多管齐下的政策和方案方法，以确保获得癌症药物。
