This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Cancer care costs could increase by 66% in 2020
In 10 years, the cost of cancer treatment in the US could reach nearly $158 billion.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The costs associated with cancer care are projected to increase by 27% in 2020, an estimate that only takes into consideration changes in the US population, according to a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
If an annual 2% increase in cost during the initial year after diagnosis and the last year of life is factored in, the costs associated with cancer care are projected to increase by 39%. If a 5% annual increase in cost is factored in, the costs associated with cancer care would increase by 66% compared with 2010.
“With more expensive targeted treatments adopted as standards of care, the costs of cancer are expected to escalate more rapidly in the near future,” the researchers wrote. “The US Bureau of Census projects that the population aged 65 years and older is expected to increase from 40 million in 2009 to 70 million in 2030. Because cancer incidence is highest in the elderly, the impact of these population changes on cancer prevalence may exceed the impact of declining cancer incidence rates for some cancers.”
The researchers estimated the cancer prevalence and net costs for 2010 and used this data to project the prevalence, incidence and net costs for 2020. Prevalence was calculated using cancer incidence and survival data from the SEER database. Costs were estimated from SEER-Medicare linkage data.
In 2010, there were an estimated 13.8 million cancer survivors alive, with 58% of those being aged 65 years and older. If incidence and survival remain constant, there will be an estimated 18.1 million cancer survivors in 2020, with a 42% increase projected for the population aged 65 years and older. Female breast cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer and melanoma had the largest number of survivors in 2010, and also were the projected groups with the largest number of survivors in 2020.
The national cost of cancer care in 2010 was estimated to be $124.57 billion. These costs were projected to increase to $157.77 billion in 2020, which is a 27% increase over 2010. However, if the projected annual 2% increase in cost is factored in, then the cost will increase to $172.77 billion, which is a 39% increase over 2010.
When considered by cancer site and phase of care, the projected increases are highest for patients with breast cancer and patients with prostate cancer in the continuing phase of care.
“These data are not a surprise, and they give a snapshot of where we are today, which is very important in the context of health care reform and tightening budgets,” John Marshall, MD, professor of medicine at Georgetown University, told HemOnc Today. “The projections for 2020 costs are fairly conservative. They do not take into account any new discoveries and new drugs and people living longer, it projects only that more people will be living with cancer. The hope is that people will be living longer with their cancers, and what goes along with that is additional, expensive medicine.”