Doctors at Queen Mary Hospital have set up a database on leukaemia treatment which they hope will lead to an expensive cancer-fighting drug being made available at a fraction of its current price.
At present, a six-month course of treatment using the drug rituximab, which is widely used in Europe but has not been studied properly in a Chinese context, can cost as much as HK$130,000.
Haematology specialists Dr Eric Tse Wai-choi and Dr Kwong Yok-lam, who are behind the move to collect data on rituximab, hope to convince health authorities that the chronic lymphatic leukaemia (CLL) drug is worth subsidising.
Since October, the registry has collected information from 30 patients, including causes of the disease, relapses and therapies as bases for further clinical research.
'We saw a roughly five per cent increase in the number of CLL cases every year,' said Tse. Kwong said he hoped that the database would look at the trend from a local perspective.
'What we need is sufficient data to show the government before listing [the drug] on the formulary.'
He said little research had been done on the disease's prevalence in the Chinese community and that 'all we can rely on is studies from overseas. Hopefully, two or three years of data will give us some clue.'