Women with Breast Cancer Anxious as FDA Revokes Approval for Avastin (ContributorNetwork)

The FDA held hearings over whether to revoke the authorization for Avastin, a drug manufactured by Genetech, to treat women with advanced stage breast cancer. The decision, to withdraw approval, has roused passions among patients and doctors alike.

Avastin slows the spread of cancer by inhibiting a protein that creates blood vessels that feed tumors, thus choking them off. Avastin has already been approved for colon, lung, kidney, and brain cancers. Provisional approval for breast cancer occurred in 2008.

When an FDA panel voted to revoke approval for the drug for breast cancer last year, it was claimed that it was doing so on effectiveness grounds. However many suspect that the decision to revoke approval had more to do with cost -- Avastin is very expensive with treatment costing $8,000 a month -- than with effectiveness.

While studies suggest that Avastin does not extend the lives of most breast cancer sufferers, it does extend the period of "progression free survival" doubling the time that women being treated are able to live without the horrific effects of end stage cancer. In other words, Avastin may not extend life, but it does extend the quality of life.

When the decision was first announced, many suggested that it was the first act in what Sarah Palin has called "the death panels", a decision taken to deny patients a drug that would enhance the quality of their lives solely out of financial considerations.

There is also some evidence that for a few women, Avastin actually does extend life, even putting the cancer into remission. The case of the mother of Josh Turnage, who had been diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of breast cancer, has been pointed out by those who want the approval of Avastin to remain. After a course of Avastin with chemotherapy, Ms. Turnage became cancer free, which she has remained for over two years thanks to a course of Avastin alone.

If nothing else, research into how Ms. Turnage was able to beat cancer with Avastin should be conducted while other women suffering from breast cancer are allowed to take the drug. One hopes that the FDA will see the wisdom in that.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/diseases/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110629/us_ac/8720259_women_with_breast_cancer_anxious_as_fda_revokes_approval_for_avastin

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