TUESDAY, Dec. 27, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The estimated annual per-patient costs attributable to metastatic prostate cancer are $31,427, according to a study published in the January issue of Urology Practice.
T. Anders Olsen, from the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and colleagues identified fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries ages 66 years and older diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer or claims with diagnosis codes for metastatic disease between 2007 and 2017 using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare database. Annual health care costs were measured and costs were compared between cases and beneficiaries without prostate cancer.
The researchers found that the metastatic prostate cancer-attributable estimated per-patient annual costs were $31,427. Over time, there was an increase observed in the annual attributable costs, from $28,311 in 2007-2013 to $37,055 in 2014-2017. Health costs attributable to metastatic prostate cancer were $5.2 to $8.2 billion per year in aggregate.
"Metastatic prostate cancer is associated with substantial per-patient and aggregate health care costs," the authors write. "These should be taken into account when prioritizing biomedical research funds and assessing the value of interventions, like screening, to reduce the incidence of late-stage disease."
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