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How costly is brain cancer? Healthcare services use and costs from across the US
L. Kutikova, L. Bowman, S. Chang, S. Long
Eli Lilly & Co, Indianapolis, IN; Medstat Group, Washington, DC
Background.
Our research goal was to provide timely estimates of economic
burden of brain cancer to the US healthcare system for patients (pts) across the
US, and identify primary cost drivers.
Methods. Retrospective cohort analysis of direct costs and healthcare
services use in brain cancer pts and controls was conducted using MarketScanTM
US employers’ claims databases of over 3 million individuals.
Cases were pts
newly diagnosed with brain cancer in 1999-2000.
Controls were individuals
without cancer diagnosis and matched 3:1 with cases (97.5% match) on age,
gender, healthcare coverage, region (e.g., West), and follow-up length.
Utilization of healthcare services and costs were standardized to monthly
means.
Results.
The study consisted of 652 cases and 1,959 controls.
40% of
cases had late stage disease.
Median age was 56 years for cases and 55 years for
controls.
Mean follow-up was 10.9 months for both groups.
Mean monthly rates of
hospitalizations, length of stay, emergency room visits, office visits, outpt
radiology and laboratory procedures, and pharmacy-dispensed prescription drugs
were all higher for cases than controls (p<0.0001).
Cases had a 20 times
higher monthly rate of hospitalization than controls (0.2 vs. 0.01).
Mean
monthly rate of office visits was 5.1 for cases vs. 0.8 for controls.
Cases had
more mean monthly prescription drugs than controls (3.4 vs. 1.1).
Similarly,
mean monthly total, inpt and outpt costs of cases were several times higher
compared to controls (p<0.0001).
Mean monthly total costs were $7,081 for
cases and $237 for controls, hospitalizations accounted for $4,502 of the mean
monthly total costs for cases and $58 for controls.
Mean monthly costs
associated with office visits were $1,501 for cases vs. $97 for controls.
Conclusions.
Pts with brain cancer accrued costs that were 23 times
higher than demographically similar population without cancer.
Office visits
were the most frequent service; inpt costs were drivers of total costs.
Despite
its small incidence, the burden of brain cancer to the healthcare system is
substantial and suggests a need for increased prevention or new therapies to
impact resource use and healthcare costs.
Copyright 2004 American Society of Clinical Oncology All rights
reserved worldwide.
Source: http://www.asco.org/ac/1,1003,_12-002636-00_18-0026-00_19-001563,00.asp
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