after his cancer came back in may 2018, his oncologist at b.c. cancer sought special permission to put him on ibrutinib, which costs the province $110,000 a year for each patient.
gilmore said he’s grateful for the effect the four tablets a day is having. side effects can be harsh “though manageable.”
“my attitude is you just have to do what the experts tell you to do. forget the alternative stuff like cannabis or whatever else.”
the canadian cancer statistics report is a collaboration between the cancer society, the public health agency of canada and statistics canada.
it shows five-year survival rates from common types of blood cancers — including leukemia, non-hodgkin lymphoma, and multiple myeloma — have increased up to 19 percentage points in the past 20 years, more than any other group of cancers.
by comparison, overall survival from all types of cancer has risen only eight per cent — from 55 per cent to 63 per cent in nearly 30 years.
the improvements being made in blood cancers are remarkable, dr. leah smith, senior manager of cancer surveillance, said in a cancer society press release. she attributes that to research and personalized medicine, also called precision medicine. that includes therapies like stem-cell transplants and new drugs like the one gilmore is on that are matched to an individual patient’s unique tumour genes.