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Medicare pays $21.1 billion for 5-year cancer care
By Sue Mueller
Apr 30, 2008 - 1:01:56 PM

WEDNESDAY April 30, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- Researchers at the National Cancer Institute Tuesday said a 5-year cancer care in the United States cost Medicare $21.1 billion, Reuters reported today.

In 2003, an estimated 10 million Americans lived with cancer and the cost for cancer care estimated by the National Cancer institute was at $72.1 billion in 2004.

The five-year cost varied with cancer type from less than $20,000 for an elderly patient with breast cancer or melanoma to more than $40,000 for a patient with lymphoma, brain and nervous system cancers, Reuters reported, citing the study.

The highest cost came from cancer treatment for the first 12 months during which intensive treatment was used and last 12 months during which hospitalization was required more often.

The study conducted by Robin Yabroff of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues was based on 1999-2003 data from more than 700,000 cancer patients covered by Medicare and more than1.6 million people in the Medicare program, according to Reuters.  And the results were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Medicare is a federal health insurance program for people aged 65 or older.  According to a document released in 2005 by Pfizer, Medicare pays about 37 percent of the total cancer care.

For women in Medicare program, the cancers that incurred the highest cost were lung cancer ($2 billion), colorectal cancer ($1.6 billion), and breast cancer ($1.4 billion).  For men, the highest cost resulted from prostate cancer ($2.3 billion), lung cancer (2.2 billion) and colorectal cancer ($1.5 billion).

Brain and nervous system cancers incurred the highest cost in each stage of treatment during a five-year period.   Treatment of these cancers in women was most costly in the first year and last year of life.  But overall the costliest cancer for women among 18 types of cancers studied was ovarian cancer.