Cancer campaigners in Canada want swifter drug approval and consistency

The Cancer Advocacy Coalition's annual Report Card 2005 finds wide variations across Canada's provinces in the treatment of cancer. The patients' rights group highlights a "significant lag time in approval for new cancer drugs in Canada" compared with the USA.

The CAC's conclusions are: that cancer mortality rates vary across the provinces from west to east; that regional health plans prevent patients from obtaining proper treatment; and a call for a shake-up of providers and payment systems. "Often patients have to go to the USA where the drugs are available," says Kong Koo, a CAC spokesman. The CAC interviewed cancer specialists and pharmacists across the country, looking at drugs for 20 different condi-tions. In addition, the drugs' effectiveness, approval times in the USA and Canada, and both the cost and delays in approval in the provinces were analyzed.

The report found that British Columbia offered "the best funded and most timely access to cancer drugs; the best cancer outcomes and lowest cancer mortality." Ontario's "cumbersome review processes" and paperwork have delayed access to new drugs and lead to the emergence of private cancer clinics in the province.