Pediatric cancer treatment and insurance coverage was the subject of a June 7 hearing held by the House Government Reform Committee. According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer strikes over 10,000 children in the U.S. annually, and it is the leading cause of death by disease in children, accounting for eight percent of deaths between ages one and 19. However, progress has been made and the overall five-year survival rate for children with cancer is 74.5%.
Committee Chair Dan Burton (R-IN) opened the hearing with the reminder that “as a Committee and a Congress, we must remain vigilant in our oversight of the war on cancer and look for ways to improve research, access, and care.”
Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH) addressed the issue from a personal standpoint, having lost her daughter last year to a rare form of nerve cancer. Through her experience, Rep. Pryce discovered that “there are a number of improvements to be made to the manner in which our current health care system treats pediatric cancer patients,” adding that changes “could improve the survival rates and the quality of life of children who are victims of this dreaded disease.” Such changes should include increased awareness by both parents and doctors of the prevalence of pediatric cancer. She stated that “pediatricians should be trained to look for even the most subtle signs of cancer and improve screening of children for the disease.” Rep. Pryce also told the committee that palliative care, or the alleviation of patients’ pain, must not be neglected in the treatment of pediatric cancer.
Dr. Jeffrey Kang of the Health Care Financing Administration spoke about the advances in cancer treatments. He noted that “one reason for the stunning advances in pediatric cancer care has been that more than half of pediatric cancer patients were enrolled in clinical trials over the last twenty years.” However, under current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, patients are only eligible for clinical trials if they have undergone chemotherapy and radiation, and those treatments have failed. Dr. Robert Pazdur of the FDA defended these requirements saying that one cannot substitute unproven drugs when curative therapies are available. “The first chance for a cure,” he explained, “is the best chance for a cure.”
Rep. Burton, however, called for a wider variety of treatment options to be presented to patients and their families. He stated that “the decision to access another treatment protocol outside the ‘standard’ cancer protocols of chemotherapy and radiation should be the patient’s choice and not the decision of a government agency.”
