AUTHOR=Cheng Luyan , Li Caiyun , Zhang Xuefang , Chen Yongfa , Yan Jianzhou 

TITLE=The Consistency Between the Chinese Essential Medicines List and Treatment Guidelines—Taking Oncology Medicines as an Example

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.943994

DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2022.943994

ISSN=2296-2565

ABSTRACT=In 1975, in order to solve the problem of medicine unavailability in developing and poor countries, the concepts of "essential medicine" and "national medicine policy" were first put forward at the World Health Assembly. In order to actively respond to the call of the World Health Organization, since the introduction of the concept of essential medicines in 1979, the essential medicine system has experienced three development stages in China. At present, the essential medicines list published in China is the national essential medicines list (2018 Edition). In this paper, we have studied the consistency between the essential medicines for treating 7 cancers (liver cancer, breast cancer, esophageal cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer and leukemia) and the recommended medicines by cancer treatment guidelines to assess whether the essential medicines are high quality medicines for clinical needs. The results showed that the matching degree of antitumor medicines in the essential medicines list and antitumor medicines recommended by guidelines was low, most of them were between 30% ~ 60%, they had not reached a high matching degree. It was necessary to further improve the matching degree to improve the quality of essential medicines. Therefore, in order to further improve the consistency between the essential medicines list and treatment guidelines, this paper puts forward the following suggestions: 1. Formulate unified treatment guidelines; 2. When selecting essential medicines, more reference should be made to the medicines recommended in the guidelines; 3. The essential medicines list and treatment guidelines should be updated simultaneously; 4. The update cycle of essential medicines list and treatment guidelines should be shortened.