The Role of Innovation on the Decline in Cancer Mortality
According to a new NBER paper by Frank Lichtenberg, life expectancy at birth increased by nearly three months from 1996 to 2006, due to improved cancer imaging and cancer drug innovation:
- Only seven percent of the decline in cancer mortality is due to the decline in incidence.
- One-fourth of decline in cancer mortality can be attributed to new cancer-drug innovation.
- About 40 percent of the decline in cancer mortality is due to imaging innovation.
That’s too bad that incidence has not declined as much. It’s much better to not get cancer at all!
This study, ironically, comes out at the very time when all the cancer organizations (probably with the complicity of the Obama Administration)are trying to convince us that we are spending too much on imaging and cancer drugs and getting little in return.
Great post. Thanks. A good antidote to the anti-MRI, anti-drug messages we keep hearing everywhere else.