The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) will soon encourage doctors to discuss the financial costs of chemotherapy as one of the side effects that patients should consider in deciding which treatment to proceed with, or whether to use treatment at all.
The price of cancer drugs is rising at a rate of 15 percent per year, in particular as new and expensive biotechnology drugs hit the market. Some of these drugs may cost $100,000 or more for a course of treatment.