Health Care Costs for Treatment of Lung Cancer

The costs of lung cancer treatment have been spiraling exponentially but have not led to a marked increase in long-term survival rates, which remain low, research indicates. Most patients are elderly and are likely to have other health conditions that can reduce their ability to fight the disease.

Overall Cost

• The U.S. spends more than $5 billion per year in detecting and treating lung cancer even though the five-year survival rate hovers at about 16 percent, according to a 2007 Science Daily article.

Cancer Drugs

• The cost of new cancer drugs is extremely expensive and may be of limited efficacy. For example, a 2009 Wall Street Journal article reports that “treating a lung-cancer patient with Erbitux, a drug that costs $80,000 for an 18-week regimen, prolongs survival by only 1.2 months.”

History

• The steeply rising costs of treating lung cancer are not recent but historical. A study reported in the November 2005 issue of the journal Lung Cancer indicates that patients who died two years after initial diagnosis incurred $6,181 more in monthly costs for treatment than those who were cancer-free. This represents, not only oral, chemo and radiation therapy but detection, hospital and out-patient visits.

New Drugs

• Oncologists have expressed concern about the cost of expensive drugs that barely affect survival rates. A 2009 ABC News article revealed that treatment with a new drug, pemetrexed, cost more than twice than doxcetal, an older cancer drug, but increased patient survival by only 3 months over the survival rate of those who didn’t receive it.

Factors

• The average age of people diagnosed with lung cancer is 68 to 70, the American Cancer Society points out. Elderly patients often suffer from other health conditions that may compromise their ability to fight cancer or withstand the often serious side effects of aggressive treatment.