Avastin and Quality of Life
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- Created on Wednesday, 04 January 2012 14:24
It has been recently reported that Avastin, when used in conjunction with chemotherapy, can defer the worsening of ovarian cancer by up to 4 months. At least that's what a study claims, that Genentech, the manufacturer of Avastin, helped pay for. It is important to take away from this study that women treated with Avastin did not live longer than other women in the study and that Avastin did not improve the quality of life during those 4 months.
It is also important to note that the FDA has revoked its approval for the controversial drug Avastin to treat breast cancer, citing studies showing that Avastin did not increase the life of breast cancer patients receiving this medication but did in fact increase their risk of intestine perforations, which can effect up to 3% of patients.
One individual brought up an extremely important and often overlooked point in the comments section of this article. They noted that their loved one agreed to take Avastin in addition to their regular chemotherapy to treat kidney cancer. She claims that while Avastin may have warded off the worsening of her husband's kidney cancer, the tradeoff was not worth it. Her husband spent the last four months of his life in sheer agony. Clearly in his case, quality of life was not improved. In this situation all decisions are difficult ones to make. Clearly nobody wants their loved ones to perish but it is it worth it to extend one's life for 4 months if it means bankrupting your family to pay for expensive medical treatments? That can be a very morbid thought, especially when it involves you or someone in your family, but one that you may have to make one day.
Several individuals have accused Genentech, the manufacturer of Avastin, and other large drug manufacturers of having perverse financial incentives to only treat patients and not cure them. While this borders on conspiracy theory, it doesn't always feel 100% unsubstantiated.
If you or a loved one has experienced painful side effects from Avastin please contact the Avastin Lawyers at Cates Law as soon as possible. If we accept your case and feel that Genentech acted negligently we will begin fighting immediately to compensate the victim and/or their family. The best course of action to prevent powerful drug manufacturers from acting negligently is to hit them where it hurts – their bottom line. The Avastin Lawyers at Cates Law are extremely knowledgeable and successful at practicing this type of litigation and we are willing to speak with you for free to go over all of your options. We are currently accepting cases nationwide.
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