Open AccessThe cost of cancer – A comparative analysis of the direct medical costs of cancer and other major chronic diseases in Europe
Author(s) -
Max Schlueter,
Katie Chan,
Romain Lasry,
Martin Price
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0241354
Subject(s) - medicine , cancer , disease , disease burden , health care , epidemiology , environmental health , indirect costs , burden of disease , gerontology , epidemiological transition , business , accounting , economics , economic growth
Background Cancer poses a significant mortality, morbidity, economic and humanistic burden to patients and health systems. This study aims to better understand healthcare expenditure on cancer relative to other major chronic diseases across France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, whilst also considering the burden of illness posed by these conditions. Methods A targeted literature review was performed to identify and extract relevant demographic, epidemiological and economic data. A health care payer perspective was adopted for the analysis, with a focus on direct healthcare costs. Results Between 2006–2015, the cancer-related disability-adjusted life year (DALY) disease burden decreased by 9.3% despite a 6.5% increase in prevalence. Whilst the per patient drug costs increased by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.1%, the overall per patient cancer costs decreased over the 10-year study period (CAGR of -1.4%). Compared to cardiovascular disease, neurological/mental disorders and diabetes, cancer was associated with the highest disease burden (20.8% of DALYs across all diseases) but the second-lowest healthcare expenditure levels (4.8% of total healthcare expenditure) among the studied major chronic diseases. Conclusions Our study suggests that the costs associated with treating cancer account for a low proportion of total healthcare expenditure relative to the burden of the disease and compared to other major chronic diseases across the countries included in the analysis.