Chemoprevention

Abstract

Cancer is a worldwide health burden with diagnosis in 1.6 million new cases and resulted in more than 585,000 deaths in the USA as per prediction reports of 2014 (Siegel et al. 2014). There is an improvement in cancer treatment with more efficient drugs being better safety options and target oriented over the last two decades. Unnecessary side effects constitute a major problem in spite of the progresses made. Incidences of cancer are increasing worldwide and so are the costs of new treatment, i.e., newer cancer treatments are costly. Ponatinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor which is used for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia, costs approximately $140000 (USD) per patient per year (Ferlay et al. 2015). With 34 % per GDP capita in 1995–1999, 53 % in 2000–2004, and 67 % in 2005–2009 was the nonhormonal drug cost for the average course of cancer treatment (Savage 2012) which signifies the trend is increasing and no. of treatment options are limiting accepted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK.