Mohagheghi Mohammad Ali, Mousavi-Jarrahi Yasaman, Mosavi-Jarrahi Alireza
The Cancer Institute Research Center, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran.
Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2011;12(4):1013-5.
The aim of this study was to estimate the cost of lung cancer treatment in the first year after diagnosis in Iran.
Patients from two referral hospitals providing all lines of treatment to cancer patients in Tehran were sampled. The direct cost included the costs that patients and other payer' s (insurance, NGO's, or other source of payment services) paid for the services received since their first confirmed diagnosis of cancer for the duration of one year. Nine items of services were evaluated for each case with exact costs abstracted from patient's files. Using incidence of lung cancer and population figure of the country, total number of lung cancer was estimated. The total and itemized costs were estimated using an average per patients for each service.
The average age at diagnosis was around 56 years and majority of cases were male. All patients were insured by major insurance companies. A total of 5,829 cases of lung cancer were estimated to occur in 2010. The average±standard deviation (sd) of duration of hospital stay was 11.9±9.7 days. Not all the patients received all lines of services: 86% received surgery, 36% radiotherapy; and 45% chemotherapy in the first year. Some 14% of cases utilized physiotherapy and 11.5% needed pre-treatment counseling. The grand total cost of treatment for the first year of services since diagnosis was estimated at 11,262,386 US dollars for the whole population of Iran in the year 2010. Among different services provided to the patients, surgery with annual cost of 3,178,725 US dollars constitute 28% of the total cost; radiotherapy and cost of paid for medication with an annual cost of 4,242,244 US dollars accounted for 38% of total costs. With 7.8% of Iranian GDP being consumed in health expenditure, the direct cost of lung cancer for the first year after diagnosis amounted to 4% of this figure.
Our study, the first to estimate the direct cost of lung cancer in Iran, indicate how costly lung cancer is to the country. More comprehensive studies are needed to validate our results plus to assess other cost including indirect costs.
本研究旨在估算伊朗肺癌确诊后第一年的治疗费用。
对德黑兰两家为癌症患者提供所有治疗方案的转诊医院的患者进行抽样。直接成本包括患者及其他支付方（保险、非政府组织或其他支付服务来源）自首次确诊癌症起一年内为所接受服务支付的费用。对每个病例的九项服务进行评估，并从患者档案中提取确切费用。利用肺癌发病率和该国人口数据，估算肺癌总数。每项服务按患者平均费用估算总费用和分项费用。
确诊时的平均年龄约为56岁，大多数病例为男性。所有患者均由主要保险公司承保。估计2010年共发生5829例肺癌病例。住院时间的平均值±标准差为11.9±9.7天。并非所有患者都接受了所有治疗方案：第一年，86%的患者接受了手术，36%接受了放疗，45%接受了化疗。约14%的病例接受了物理治疗，11.5%的病例需要治疗前咨询。2010年伊朗全国确诊后第一年的服务总治疗费用估计为11262386美元。在为患者提供的不同服务中，年度费用为3178725美元的手术占总费用的28%；年度费用为4242244美元的放疗和药物费用占总费用的38%。由于卫生支出占伊朗国内生产总值的7.8%，肺癌确诊后第一年的直接成本占该数字的4%。
我们的研究首次估算了伊朗肺癌的直接成本，表明肺癌对该国的成本有多高。需要进行更全面的研究来验证我们的结果，并评估包括间接成本在内的其他成本。
