The costs of carboplatin treatment.

Cancer Research Unit, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Safety and efficacy trials comparing carboplatin and cisplatin, especially in ovarian cancer, have shown that the two drugs have a similar efficacy profile. Carboplatin, however, is significantly less toxic than cisplatin. The total costs of carboplatin and cisplatin therapy, which include not only drug costs but all health care costs incurred in preventing and managing toxicity, therefore differ considerably. Thus, despite carboplatin's considerably more expensive cost per dose, when the total costs of treatment are considered, carboplatin treatment is certainly no more expensive, and in many countries may be less expensive, than cisplatin therapy.

PMID: 1992533 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]