2023-08-11 16:00:00
A young mother from Abitibi suffering from a rare cancer sees her hopes of survival vanish because Quebec refuses to finance the hospitalization costs related to a treatment offered in Calgary which might also benefit other Quebecers.
“I really believed in it. I told myself that I was going to get through, but there, it’s as if they let me die”, breathes Stéphanie Alain at the end of the line, in tears.
A little over a year ago, the 31-year-old woman from Rouyn-Noranda was diagnosed with alveolar sarcoma, a cancer that starts in soft tissue, attacks muscles before spreading and for which it there is no treatment in Quebec.
If the surgery came to the end of the tumor in the thigh of Mme Alain, there are still metastases in his lungs.
His only real hope of recovery is to participate in a clinical study in Calgary.
PROVIDED BY STÉPHANIE ALAIN
Mme Alain would have been the first Quebec patient to be able to benefit from the treatment, new for sarcomas, but which has already been proven for other types of cancer, explains his doctor, Dr.r Ramy Saleh.
- Stéphanie Alain was at the microphone of Marie Montpetit to give us her testimony via QUB radio :
“It’s really annoying that the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec [RAMQ] say no. I have no other treatment for her. Options, I have no other,” laments the oncologist at the McGill University Health Center (MUHC).
“It’s a matter of time before the study arrives in Quebec, but my patient can’t wait a year or a year and a half,” he points out.
Dr. Ramy Saleh, oncologist at the McGill University Health Center.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY RAMY SALEH
However, the treatment is approved by Health Canada and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The RAMQ only had to finance the associated standard hospitalization costs.
“It’s difficult. I was really confident and ready to go. Time, I don’t have that much left,” laments Mme Alain, mother of a four and a half year old little boy.
Impact on other patients
The RAMQ’s decision might have an impact on other patients with alveolar sarcoma who might have benefited from the same treatment, laments the team of doctors at the MUHC.
Rare, alveolar sarcoma almost always presents in an advanced way, in fairly young patients, explains Dr.r Robert Turcotte, Orthopedic Surgeon and Director of the Sarcoma Program.
“I don’t understand. The government does not even have to pay for the experimental treatment, we are talking regarding hospitalization costs, it is not much. I think it is a mistake to close the door to treatments that are known to be effective for other cancers,” he says.
RAMQ declines to comment.
Alveolar sarcoma
- Soft tissue tumor that often starts in the legs;
- It often affects young adults, women more than men;
- It grows slowly and spreads to the lungs, brain or bones.
Source: Canadian Cancer Society
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