Department of Medical Oncology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada.
Jewish General Hospital Segal Cancer Center, Montreal, QC H3T 1E2, Canada.
Curr Oncol. 2024 Oct 1;31(10):5908-5918. doi: 10.3390/curroncol31100440.
Medical oncology is a rapidly evolving field, with new medications being discovered yearly, contributing to increased survival rates. However, accessing drugs in a timely manner can be challenging. In Quebec, Canada, a physician can prescribe an unlisted anticancer treatment through a regulated pathway under exceptional circumstances. We conducted a quality improvement study describing the outcomes of incurable cancer patients receiving unlisted anticancer therapy at the Jewish General Hospital between 2018 and 2019. Though our study did not include a comparator arm, unlisted anticancer therapies were associated with interesting median progression-free survival (11 months) and overall survival (25 months). Moreover, a large proportion of treatments, 44%, were subsequently reimbursed in the province of Quebec. Given the delay in anticancer drug reimbursement, this pathway is essential for timely access to oncology drugs. Such 'special access' programs will likely become increasingly important as precision medicine becomes the standard of practice.
医学肿瘤学是一个快速发展的领域，每年都有新的药物被发现，这有助于提高生存率。然而，及时获得这些药物是具有挑战性的。在加拿大魁北克省，如果在特殊情况下，医生可以通过受监管的途径开出未上市的抗癌治疗药物。我们进行了一项质量改进研究，描述了在 2018 年至 2019 年期间，在犹太综合医院接受未上市抗癌治疗的不治之症患者的结果。虽然我们的研究没有包括对照组，但未上市的抗癌治疗与有趣的中位无进展生存期（11 个月）和总生存期（25 个月）相关。此外，44%的治疗方法随后在魁北克省得到了报销。鉴于抗癌药物报销的延迟，这种途径对于及时获得肿瘤药物至关重要。随着精准医疗成为常规，这种“特殊准入”程序可能变得越来越重要。
