I thought some people here would find this interesting and also help explain some of the treatment choices that may have been made for them.
Yes and when you look at the do not do guidelines for metastatic breast cancer it get even more worrying. NICE advise doctors that they should not routinely biopsy secondary tumours unless the primary was never biopsied. Unfortunately, this means that if someone with secondary cancer has progression due to the fact that their cancer has changed it’s receptor (e.g, from oestrogen + to Her2 +), this could go untreated, because doctors don’t usually diagnose or prescribe on the basis of guesswork, and without a biopsy of secondaries, there would be no evidence on which to base diagnosis.
NICE is all about controlling cost, and if we as a Society don’t want bodies like NICE (which personally I don’t), then we have to agree that more needs to be spent on healthcare. Trouble is, we then get into a debate about things like higher tax, and/or re-setting priorities.
I agree. It all boils down to cost, priorities and raising revenue which ultimately means decisions about our health are politically dependent, rather than “best care”.
Thanks for sharing this - I’d not seen it before. Yep - very worrying if we want “quality” and “leading edge” treatments…
Thanks for sharing yes worrying 