Costs
I'd like to add a postscript to Mort's entry about the cost of radioimmunotherapy. One of the best things about RIT is that patients rarely have side effects which require further treatment and which thus drive up the cost of care. In my own case, I spent 12 days in the hospital as a result of chemotherapy complications, not an inexpensive "vacation." I also took shots of Neulasta between treatments, and a single shot in 2002 cost $3,000. This was in addition to the cost of chemotherapy. All told, my expenses for the year I was sick totalled just over $200,000, not including radioimmunotherapy! (Thankfully, insurance covered nearly everything or we would have been in big trouble.) As you can see, RIT was a drop in the bucket, so to speak.
It is my understanding that the cost of radioimmunotherapy is less than chemo, but when you also add in the possibility of complications that chemo causes, it becomes significantly less. When you also factor in loss of work with months of chemo and potential complications versus a one week treatment with RIT, the net economic impact is even greater. Most important, I believe, is that RIT has been proven to be more effective and more gentle than traditional chemotherapy treatments.
I hope that insurers will soon realize that RIT saves money and that ALL doctors will soon realize that RIT saves more lives than any treatment in the history of lymphoma.
Betsy