Cancer drugs often impair quality of life and fail to extend patient survival. Mandating increased efficacy and promoting efforts to target tumor metastasis may improve outcomes for patients with cancer.

A recent report by researchers at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that cancer costs in the US for 2010 exceeded $124 billion and may top $157 billion (in 2010 dollars) by 2020, owing to population growth and aging (J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 103, 117–128, 2011). The authors concluded that, on a per-person basis, the cost of cancer is highest in the last year of life and will likely increase further as new technologies and new targeted therapies enter the clinic.

But, all too often, new therapies extend patients’ lives by just days to months, and the quality of life added is questionable at best. Can cancer care dollars be better spent?

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