Call for improved drug access for advanced breast cancer patients

A European conference has heard calls for improved access to drugs for patients with common forms of advanced breast cancer.

The first call at the conference in Portugal was for access to CDK4/6 inhibitors, which doctors said were not on offer to most patients who could benefit.

Delegates at the Advance Breast Cancer Conference agreed their own guidelines stating that these drugs can help patients live longer with the same or better quality of life.

The guidelines say the drugs should be given to patients with oestrogen receptor positive and HER2 negative disease.

The conference also heard that patients were suffering because of restrictions on opioid prescription – partly as part of the backlash against opioid addiction, which has become a major issue in the USA.

And delegates called for more research on the potential of cannabis to relieve suffering. More than 1,500 people from 90 countries attended the conference.

Conference chair Professor Fatima Cardoso, of the Champalimaud Cancer Centre in Lisbon, Portugal, said: “We now have a family of drugs, CDK4/6 inhibitors, that can substantially prolong life in the most common subtype of breast cancer.

“These drugs bring us much closer to our aim of doubling the time patients with advanced breast cancer live without their disease progressing, but we can only achieve that if they are available to everyone who needs them.”

She added: "The major problem is the cost of these medicines and, at present, only a small proportion of patients around the world are being treated with them. The same occurs with anti-HER2 therapies, which can prolong survival substantially for another subtype of advanced breast cancer – HER2 positive breast cancer.

“There is unequal access to these medicines not only between countries, but within countries as well, and between pre- and post-menopausal women. Our panel of world experts on the treatment of breast cancer agrees that CDK4/6 inhibitors should be make available to every patient who could benefit from them, not just a small percentage.”