Cancer - A Silent Killer of Body and Time

A US Government conducted study has found that the patient’s lost time increases the cost of care given for cancer. The study included the amount of time spent by the patients in travelling to and fro, waiting at the doctor’s clinic, or in the line of CT scans, accepting drip and getting other care.

According to the study, a cancer patient spends $2.3 billion on average for his/her cancer treatment only during the first year. This study was conducted on people affected with any of the 11 most common cancers.

The study tried to quantify the money spent on one’s treatment throughout the year. For calculating overall cost, $15.23 per hour, the median wage given in the US in the year 2002 was used.

"For 2005, the estimated cost for the initial phase of care alone was approximately $2.3 billion" for U.S. cancer patients, concludes a report published in the Jan. 3 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study was conducted by NCI epidemiologist Robin Yabroff and colleagues on the patients’ that were covered under the government’s insurance program, Medicare. Moreover, the study targeted 763,000 people of 65 years and older, who received care as outpatients and after being admitted in the hospital.

The study even researched on the number of hours lost by patients affected with different cancers. It varied with cancer to cancer after diagnosis.

The patient with ovarian cancer lost 368 hours in the first year after diagnosis, while the lung and kidney cancer patients lost 272 and 193 hours respectively.

"What we see here is a measure of the patient's burden of commitment," wrote Drs. Larry Kessler of the Food and Drug Administration and Scott Ramsey of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, in an accompanying editorial.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society praised the research for the attempt made to quantify that often overlooked reality. He also said that cancer was not just money spent on medicines, the treatment and the doctor, but the opportunities that a patient loses.

Lichtenfeld noted, “Early diagnoses require less treatment time, so investing in research for better early detection of cancer "has real benefits."

Yabroff said that the younger patients received more attention and intensive treatment than the older people.

Larry G. Kessler, director of the office of science and engineering laboratory at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and co-author of an accompanying editorial was surprised that the amount of time was 33 percent to medical costs in cancer care.

Different cancers had different costs. According to the researchers estimate, the cost for the treatment of gastric cancer was $5348, and that of the ovarian cancer was $5605 during the first year. However, this cost increased to $7799 and $7388 for gastric and ovarian cancer respectively during the last year of life of patients.