Does cancer deserve special treatment when health technologies are prioritized?

Abstract

Despite most new cancer treatments having relatively high costs and low health benefits, they are often funded ahead of treatments for other illnesses. And yet, according to the article by Dan Greenberg and colleagues, most Israeli oncologists and family physicians think that new cancer treatments should not receive such a high priority and that cost-effectiveness data should be used to support funding decisions. In this commentary, I point out that the increasing pressure worldwide when prioritizing health technologies to widen the scope of the benefits that are recognized beyond just narrowly-defined health benefits would almost certainly include the special characteristics of cancer. Future research would be worthwhile into how the criteria for prioritizing technologies should be incorporated into prioritization frameworks in practice, including, in particular, how to resolve the inherent trade-offs.This is a commentary on http://www.ijhpr.org/content/2/2/44/.