For her, Lotronex made life livable. Similarly, cancer patients like Teddy are often willing to suffer severe side effects because the therapies preserve their lives. She says only someone who has lived through constant side effects, every time they take a certain drug, can know what that's like. The issue of an individual's perception about his or her quality of life now commands new importance in medical decision-making. It's no longer enough to know how a medical treatment preserves life or holds disease at bay.
People have very real ideas about what states of physical well-being are desirable or undesirable.
And because the patient's perspective is of great interest to those who make decisions about drug use, pharmaceutical companies want to incorporate findings about a treatment's impact on the quality of life into the labeling and promotion of their products. But the agency's job of regulating these claims is not easy because little consistency exists in the way quality of life is measured and interpreted. A growing number of therapeutics could even be considered lifestyle drugs because some of the disorders they treat are not life-threatening, and, depending on the individual, they can certainly add to life's enjoyment. The manufacturer of the drug Viagra, for example, might want to try to claim that as a result of reversing impotence, the drug enhances one's overall marital satisfaction. The company would need to provide evidence before FDA would allow it to make that kind of claim.