Cancer Resources > Cancer News > 2008 > June

Rise in cost of cancer care in US linked to increase in use of adjuvant therapies

contrast, during the same period, Medicare payment for initial care of prostate cancer dropped by $196 to $18,261 in 2002.

Last Updated: 2008-06-11 10:55:13 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - From 1991 to 2002, the cost of initial care for lung, colorectal, and breast cancers in the US rose significantly, a trend that largely relates to greater use of chemotherapy and radiation and increasing costs for these treatments, new research indicates. For prostate cancer, however, the cost fell.

"These trends are likely to continue in the near future," Dr. Joan L. Warren and colleagues note in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute for June 18, "although more efficient targeting of costly therapies could mitigate the overall economic impact of this trend."

A number of reports have shown increases in cancer treatment costs, but the temporal changes and the services responsible for the increases have not been well studied, write Dr. Warren, from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues.

According to the findings, which stem from a study of 306,709 older adults entered in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database, Medicare payments for initial care of lung, colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers exceeded $6.7 billion in 2002. Care for colorectal cancer and lung cancer was the most costly.

The average Medicare payments for initial care of a lung, colorectal, or breast cancer patient in 2002 were $39,891, $41,134, and $20,964, respectively. After adjusting for inflation, these figures were $7139, $5345, and $4189 higher, respectively, than the costs in 1991.


For all four malignancies studied, the bulk of the payments went to hospital costs. During the study period, a marked increase in chemotherapy use was seen for all cancers, while radiotherapy usage rose for all except colorectal cancer.

"To our knowledge, this analysis is the first to assess trends in the costs of specific components of initial cancer care in the US," the authors state. "These current trend estimates can be used as baseline data for investigators who wish to model the cost implications of specific emerging technologies and practices using working assumptions about service costs and dissemination."

J Natl Cancer Inst 2008;100:888-897.

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