There is a plausible long-term prospect of nobody ever dying from cancer where it becomes a chronic rather than life threatening condition, according to Perci Health co-founder and CEO Kelly McCabe (pictured).
McCabe told delegates at the Association of Medical Insurers and Intermediaries (AMII) health and wellbeing summit, that this is because precision medicines are massively improving patient outcomes.
“Today they’re starting to deliver precision medicines, so you’re looking at somebody’s genetics, you’re looking at their tumour biology and you’re prescribing much more tailored therapeutic interventions for that,” McCabe explained.
“The benefits of that is seeing massively improved outcomes, so survival rates are increasing and hopefully it means less toxicity for the patients. They’re getting the right treatment at the right time.”
McCabe added that the current landscape is changing all the time.
“In the time I’ve worked in cancer care, just under 20 years now, we have seen the fastest emergence of novel therapies,” she continued.
“When I was working at HCA, they were one of the first private centres to deliver CAR-T cell therapies which radically changed outcomes for certain types of blood cancer and since then we have seen more and more novel therapies being brought to market than ever before.”
But McCabe also said she does think there is a plausible world in the future where nobody dies from cancer.
“This means cancer is being classified as a chronic condition,” she continued.
“So something you can live with for many years and therefore we have to manage it like a long term condition and empower patients to manage the condition in the long term.”
