Billions spent on European cancer care
pharmafile | October 15, 2013 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Cancer, Europe, Lancet, Oxford, Pfizer
A new report has shown that cancer cost the European Union a total of €126 billion in 2009, with healthcare accounting for nearly half of that outlay at €51 billion.
Across the EU the healthcare costs of cancer calculated down to €102 per citizen but varied substantially across member states. Bulgaria spent €16 per head but this is compared to the €184 spent per person in Luxembourg.
The report’s authors writing in The Lancet this week said that reasons as to why their results show wide differences between these countries required ‘further investigation’. But one reason may be the economic wealth of each country as Bulgaria is one of the poorest members of the EU, whilst Luxembourg is one of the wealthiest.
Written by researchers from the University of Oxford and King’s College London in the UK and funded by Pfizer, the report analysed data from each of the 27 nations throughout the EU in 2009.
The researchers found that around 60% of the cost of cancer came from outside of healthcare costs. This includes productivity losses (i.e., cancer patients not being able to work) due to early death cost the EU €42·6 billion, and lost working days €9·43 billion. Informal care by friends and relatives was estimated to cost just over €23 billion.
Lung cancer had the highest economic cost at €18·8 billion, which accounted for 15% of the overall cancer cost. This was followed by breast cancer (€15·0 billion, 12%), colorectal cancer (€13·1 billion, 10%), and prostate cancer (€8·43 billion, 7 per cent).
Sara Osborne, head of policy at Cancer Research UK, said: “The financial impact that cancer has on the economy across Europe due to people dying prematurely from the disease and time off work remains a huge burden.
“This study reinforces why research is vital to improve our understanding of the causes of cancer – so that we lessen the impact of the disease and develop better ways to prevent and treat the illness. We also need to understand why the UK’s cancer mortality rates remain higher than many EU countries despite a similar spend on cancer care.”
Bigger burdens
But despite this high cost, the overall economic burden in healthcare remains the expenditures associated with dementia and cardiovascular disease.
An EU-wide study by the same research group showed cardiovascular diseases including high blood pressure and stroke, cost €169 billion a year, while dementia cost €189 billion in just 15 countries in Western Europe.
This is because dementia has very high costs associated with long-term care and affects millions of EU citizens. Cardiovascular diseases include such a wide-range of conditions it affects many more people than cancer.
Ben Adams
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