Source: Radio New Zealand
Annual deaths from blood cancer in Aotearoa have risen by nearly 40 percent since 2008. 123RF
A charity campaigning for blood cancer patients has argued the country isn’t keeping up with treatments available internationally.
Blood Cancer New Zealand has a released a new report into the experience of blood cancer patients and healthcare workers in Aotearoa
The report looked at national data and the experiences of 744 patients and carers, and 85 healthcare professionals.
Around 27,000 New Zealanders are living with the disease and more than 3000 are diagnosed each year.
The report identified gaps in treatment compared to countries with a comparable demographic and health system – such as Australia, where many more blood cancer medicines are funded.
It found that while blood cancer is now New Zealand’s third leading cause of cancer death, the country still lacks a coordinated national focus on blood cancer care.
Annual deaths from blood cancer in Aotearoa have risen by nearly 40 percent since 2008.
The report said advances in diagnostics and treatment have transformed outcomes for patients over the past two decades, from the early use of chemotherapy to immunotherapies and cellular therapies that harness patients’ own immune systems to destroy cancer cells.
However, it said these therapies remain unavailable in New Zealand, and patients here are faced with significant personal costs and reduced survival rates.
When data on all types of blood cancers in New Zealand are combined, it doesn’t show an improvement in age-standardised mortality over the past 15 years, the report said.
The report highlighted that Australia’s five year survival rate for several types of blood cancers are higher than New Zealand – including Leukaemia (66.4 percent compared with 57.7 percent in NZ), Hodgkin Lymphoma (88.6 percent compared with 80.2 percent in NZ), and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (77.4 percent compared with 68.4 in NZ).
The report also raises other constraints, including workforce shortages in haematology and specialist roles, limited diagnostic capability, infrastructure gaps for delivering advanced therapies and barriers to medicines and clinical trials.
Blood Cancer NZ is calling for the country to form a national Blood Cancer taskforce to coordinate efforts across medicines access, workforce, research and policy settings.
The report is being launched at an event on Tuesday, which will be attended by patients, healthcare professionals and the health minister Simeon Brown.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
