ArticleJournal of the National Cancer Institute2025
Analysis of 2023 World Health Organization cancer Essential Medicines List and concordance with resource-stratified guidelines.
Article in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion as scientific rigor: progress during challenging times.JNCI cancer spectrum · 2026Article
- A pathological classification for predicting recurrence and guiding adjuvant therapy in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma following neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy: a two-center cohort study.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
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Abstract
backgroundThe World Health Organization (WHO) Essential Medicines List (EML) and resource-stratified guidelines both prioritize high-value medicines. We compared the 2023 EML cancer medicines list with global cancer statistics, examined the proportion of EML therapies recommended by resource-stratified guidelines, and identified gaps that merit evaluation by the WHO EML Committee.
methodsWe compared the 2023 EML medicines for adult cancers with cancer incidence and mortality data from GLOBOCAN 2022. We cross-referenced the EML with 2 resource-stratified guidelines (National Comprehensive Cancer Network [NCCN] and National Cancer Grid [NCG] of India) and evaluated preferred treatments in resource-stratified guidelines that were not recommended by the EML.
resultsThe 2023 EML included 64 cancer medicines for 219 tumor-specific indications. The greatest number of medicines are listed for leukemia (37/219 [17%]) and lymphoma (33/219 [15%]). Although some common cancers (eg, hepatocellular carcinoma) have no EML-listed medicines because of the low clinical benefit, we identified some cancers (eg, esophageal, gastric) with effective therapies that the EML Committee should evaluate for inclusion. Cancers with no listed medicines make up 34% of cancer deaths globally. Among EML indications with an NCCN resource-stratified guideline, 42% (35/84) and 73% (62/84) were recommended by the NCCN Basic and Core Guidelines, respectively. Among EML indications with an NCG resource-stratified guideline, 163 of 196 (83%) and 175 of 196 (89%) were recommended by the NCG Essential and Optimal guidelines, respectively.
conclusionsWe identified some effective medicines that should be evaluated for inclusion in the WHO EML. Prioritization of cancer medicines was similar between the EML and NCG India but discordant between with NCCN resource-stratified guideline.
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