More Zevalin News

Good news yesterday about Zevalin; it has been given a new reimbursement status from Medicare/Medicaid.

Quick review: Zevalin is a type of RadioImmunoTherapy (RIT). Since blood cancers like lymphoma are moving targets, conventional radiation treatments don't work on them, unlike solid cancer, which stay more or less in one place. But RIT bonds radiation with a monoclonal antibody that seeks out lymphoma cells, giving each cancer cell a zap of radiation when it adheres to it. RIT has proven to be a pretty successful treatment for many lymphoma patients.

However, RIT is very underused, for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that it needs to be administered by a radiation oncologist, not a regular oncologist. Another issue keeping it from being used has been its reimbursement status; from what I understand, doctors basically lose money when they administer RIT like Zevalin. Even though it is an injected treatment like chemo, it hasn't been reimbursed by Medicare/Medicaid as an injectioned drug, but as a radiation treatment, which pays less to doctors.

The new reimbursement status removes one more issue that seems to have been holding back more doctors from using RIT. I like to think it hasn't been a really big reason -- I have more faith in doctors than to think they'd withhold treatment that could save someone because they'd lose a few dollars. (I know, I know -- probably naive, but my faith in humanity is what helps me get out of bed in the morning). Still, it was probably a kind of last straw in a list of reasons for a lot of doctors.

And, of course, this good news comes pretty soon after FDA approval for Zevalin to be used as a consolidation treatment after chemo. Some see this as another barrier broken down, since regular oncologists will be able to treat first with chemo before passing a patient on to a radiation oncologist.

From what I've heard, patients had a big role in pushing for the new reimbursement status. Power to the people.