Cancer patients are receiving drug treatments with ‘little to no evidence they improve lives’

NEARLY two-thirds of new cancer drugs got the nod with no evidence they improved the quality or length of patients’ lives, a study found.

And any  gains they did show over existing treatments  were often tiny.

Experts say it means patients are being given false hope and exposed to toxic medication with potentially no benefit.

Health chiefs are  wasting taxpayers’ money on the drugs, it is claimed.

Research  led by  King’s College London analysed  data on cancer drugs approved by the European Medicines Agency  between 2009 and 2013.

They found 57 per cent were approved on the basis of estimates and without evidence they extended survival or improved patients’ lives.

And uncertainty still remained on 49 per cent after an average of five years on the market.

Study leader Dr Courtney Davis, from King’s College London, said: “When expensive drugs that lack clinically meaningful benefits are approved and paid for within publicly funded healthcare systems, individual patients can be harmed, important societal resources wasted, and the delivery of equitable and affordable care undermined.”

But Professor Winette van der Graaf, from the Institute of Cancer Research, London, said there were some benefits to offering drugs before all the evidence had been gathered.

She added: “In my area of research of rare cancers, the level of evidence called for here is very hard to obtain, meaning that these patients would find it extremely difficult to gain access to new treatments.”

Cancer Research UK said the study may not reflect the situation in the UK because drugs approved by the EMA may still be rejected by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

The UK drug’s watchdog aims to consider whether cancer drugs offer value for money and should be offered on the NHS within 90 days of EMA approval.