Dr. Markman on Cost Effectiveness of Precision Medicine in Gynecologic Cancers

Maurie Markman, MD, president of Medicine and Science, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, editor-in-chief, OncologyLive, and 2018 Giant of Cancer Care for Gynecological Cancers, discusses the cost effectiveness of precision medicine in gynecologic cancers.

The pundits, Markman says, are opposed to precision medicine because they simply do not understand it. They will point to this approach and say that the drugs associated with it are more expensive; however, the conceptual framework of precision medicine very much supports cost effectiveness, he adds.

Ideally, the concept of precision medicine is being able to tell a patient the 2 extremes—98% probability benefit versus a 0% probability benefit—but Markman says research in gynecologic cancers is still a long way from that.

Precision medicine turns the treatment of patients with cancer into a process. Physicians start with step 1, move on to step 2—all the while knowing the impact each step will have. For example, in chronic myeloid leukemia, no one would argue that these patients shouldn't be treated with imatinib (Gleevec), a convenient oral TKI. Precision medicine is about giving the right drug to the right patient at the right time, Markman concludes.