Doctors yesterday said that a groundbreaking chemotherapeutic drug targeting breast cancer, which uses extracts from a marine sponge found along the Japanese coastline, is now covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI) system.
Speaking at a press conference in Taipei, Changhua Christian Hospital breast cancer center director Chen Da-jen (陳達人) said the drug, known as eribulin, is derived from the Halichondria okadai sponge and is capable of extending the median overall survival of chemotherapy patients by 25 percent, approximately 13 months and six days.
He said the introduction of the drug marked a remarkable breakthrough in breast cancer treatment research, the progress of which has been stalled for 10 years.
The nation late last year issued a license for prescription of the drug, which has been covered by the NHI since Dec. 1, he said.
Compared with conventional medicines used to treat breast cancer, such as taxane and anthracycline, the drug has few side effects and only requires two to five minutes for each injection, while injection of the older drugs takes four hours per dose and often causes patients to feel nauseous, he said.
In addition, the effectiveness of older conventional methods starts to diminish once the cancer transfers or relapses, and endangers the patients’ chance of survival, but eribulin has proven effective in extending patients’ life expectancy, Chen said.
Liao Pao-chu (廖寶珠), who suffers from third-stage breast cancer, said she feels more energetic during the interval between eribulin injections than she did while undergoing taxane and anthracycline injections.
“Thanks to the therapy, I can now live a normal life in spite of chemotherapy,” Liao said.
Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital surgical specialist Fiona Cheng (鄭翠芬) said the new drug can be injected directly into the patient and does not require the use of an artificial blood vessel, which is used in combination with the traditional means to prevent hardening of veins from repeated injections and potential skin ulceration caused by leakages.
Presenting X-ray slides showing the distribution of cancer cells inside patients’ bodies, Cheng said that the therapy begins to show marked results after six courses of treatment spanning about four months, eradicating cancer cells transferred to the thyroid glands, bones and, in one particular instance, removing water accumulated in the lungs.
The new therapy also helps to reduce the financial burden on the family members of cancer patients, Cheng said.
She said that under the NHI system, 2ml of eribulin with a dosage of 1mg costs NT$12,715, meaning a woman 160cm in height and weighing 60kg would spend about NT$457,740 to see substantial results.
Under the rules for prescription of eribulin stipulated by the National Health Insurance Administration, doctors must provide a formal document stating that traditional methods using taxane and anthracycline have been ineffective, she said.
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