HMM: Dozens of New Cancer Drugs Do Little to Improve Survival, Frustrating Patients.

Pushed by patient advocates who want earlier access to medications, the­ Food and Drug Administration has approved a flurry of oncology drugs in recent years, giving some people with cancer a renewed sense of hope and an array of expensive new options. A few of these drugs have been clear home runs, allowing patients with limited life expectancies to live for years.

Many more drugs, however, have offered patients only marginal benefits, with no evidence that they improve survival or quality of life, said Dr. Vinay Prasad, assistant professor of medicine at the Oregon Health and Sciences University, who has written extensively about the FDA’s approval process for cancer drugs.

Overall cancer survival has barely changed over the past decade. The 72 cancer therapies approved from 2002 to 2014 gave patients only 2.1 more months of life than older drugs, according to a study in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery.

And those are the successes.

Bleeding-edge medicine involves going down a lot of dead ends before finding the next miracle cure. But allowing patients more freedom to enter “risky” new programs might speed that process along.