An exciting new drug, fondaparinux, significantly reduced the incidence of blood clots released from thrombophlebitis in the legs. The drug is given by self-injection for up to 45 days. The cost of the treatment for one patient is up to $7380. You have to treat 88 patients at a total cost of as much as $650,000 to prevent one clot. And no lives were saved. Because the study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the chances are that this drug will be very popular indeed. Dr. Lee Goldman of Columbia University and Dr. Jeffrey Ginsberg of McMaster University wrote a commentary in the same journal calling for cost to be a consideration in the FDA approval of drugs. I couldn’t agree more, but that would require sanity and common sense.
See New England Journal of Medicine (click here). 2010;363:1222-32, 1278-80.
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