Jalali Faride Sadat, Keshavarz Khosro, Seif Mozhgan, Akrami Majid, Jafari Abdosaleh, Ravangard Ramin
Student Research Committee, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
Health Human Resources Research Centre, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
Cost Eff Resour Alloc. 2023 Aug 29;21(1):58. doi: 10.1186/s12962-023-00470-8.
Breast cancer is one of the main causes of death from cancer around the world, imposing a significant economic burden on the families and healthcare system. The present study aimed at determining the economic burden of breast cancer in the patients referred to the medical centers in Fars province in southern Iran in 2021.
This cross-sectional study is a partial economic evaluation and a cost-of-illness study with a bottom-up and prevalence-based approach, conducted in Fars province in southern Iran in 2021 from the societal perspective. A total of 230 patients were randomly included in the study, and a researcher-made data collection form was used to collect the required data. The data on direct medical costs were collected using the information on patients' medical and financial records. On the other hand, the data on direct non-medical and indirect costs were obtained using self-reports by the patients or their companions. The Excel 2016 software was used to analyze the collected data.
The results showed that the annual cost of each breast cancer patient in the studied sample was 11,979.09 USD in 2021. Direct medical costs accounted for the largest share of costs (70.69%, among which the cost of radiotherapy was the highest one. The economic burden of the disease in the country was estimated at 193,090,952 USD.
In general, due to the high prevalence of breast cancer and the chronicity of this disease, its medical costs can impose a heavy economic burden on society, the health system, the insurance system, and patients. Thus, in order to reduce the costs, the following suggestions can be offered: the use of advanced radiotherapy techniques, increasing the insurance coverage of required services, establishing low-cost accommodation centers near medical centers for the patients and their companions, providing specialized medical services for the patients in towns, using the Internet and virtual space to follow up the treatment of the patients, and carrying out free screening programs and tests for faster diagnosis of the infected patients and susceptible or exposed people.
乳腺癌是全球癌症死亡的主要原因之一，给家庭和医疗保健系统带来了巨大的经济负担。本研究旨在确定2021年伊朗南部法尔斯省医疗中心转诊的乳腺癌患者的经济负担。
本横断面研究是一项部分经济评估和基于患病率的自下而上的疾病成本研究，于2021年从社会角度在伊朗南部法尔斯省进行。共随机纳入230名患者，使用研究者自制的数据收集表收集所需数据。直接医疗成本数据通过患者的医疗和财务记录信息收集。另一方面，直接非医疗和间接成本数据通过患者或其同伴的自我报告获得。使用Excel 2016软件分析收集到的数据。
结果显示，2021年研究样本中每位乳腺癌患者的年成本为11,979.09美元。直接医疗成本占成本的最大份额（70.69%），其中放疗成本最高。该国该疾病的经济负担估计为193,090,952美元。
总体而言，由于乳腺癌的高患病率和该病的慢性特征，其医疗成本会给社会、卫生系统、保险系统和患者带来沉重的经济负担。因此，为了降低成本，可提出以下建议：使用先进的放疗技术，提高所需服务的保险覆盖范围，在医疗中心附近为患者及其同伴建立低成本住宿中心，在城镇为患者提供专业医疗服务，利用互联网和虚拟空间对患者的治疗进行随访，开展免费筛查项目和检测以更快诊断感染患者以及易感或暴露人群。
