Early detection of retinoblastoma has important economic implications

VERACRUZ, Mexico — The early detection of retinoblastoma is important, not only to save lives and vision, but also to reduce the economic burden on the already strained health care system in Mexico, according to one speaker here.

“The economic crisis that we are going through is affecting the health care system and the hospitals,” said Marco Antonio Ramírez Ortíz, MD, here at the Mexican Congress of Ophthalmology.

Dr. Ramírez Ortíz and colleagues at the Hospital Infantil de Mexico – which cares for an estimated 25 % to 33% of all retinoblastoma cases in the country – set out to evaluate the average cost of treatment of patients with retinoblastoma.

Their premise was that the cost becomes significantly higher if the tumor is not detected until the advanced stages.

The researchers looked at 31 patients who were treated at the hospital between January 1997 and the end of 2002. They included only patients who had not been attended elsewhere in order to have a full accounting of the expenses. After calculating the expenses, they compared their numbers with data from three insurance companies to obtain an average.

They determined that treating intraocular retinoblastoma costs an average of just over US$20,000 per patient. The cost nearly doubles for extraocular cases, which average $34,000.

“Treating retinoblastoma represents not just the economic expense itself, but also the cost incurred in every city and town where patients live, and all the costs in the hospitals that are not being paid,” Dr. Ramírez Ortíz said.

He also spoke about the indirect costs of treatment, which are also important but harder to calculate.

“These include a decline in opportunities for the parents and a lessened quality of life,” he said.

A group of Mexican researchers recently called for a national effort to develop detection programs and treatment protocols for retinoblastoma.