Medicare Costs for Cancer Treatment Soar(cost in the United States for initial ca...),Health

Over the course of the study, the average cost for treating a lung cancer patient went up $7,139, to an average of $39,891. With prostate cancer, the average price tag for treatment went up $5,345, to an average of $41,134. The cost of treating breast cancer went up $4,189, to an average cost of $20,964.

However, the cost of treating prostate cancer dropped $196, to an average of $18,261 in 2002. The drop in cost was due to fewer men undergoing surgery for their cancer, the researchers found.

From 1991 to 2002, the number of patients receiving chemotherapy for lung, colorectal and breast cancer rose. The increase in chemotherapy, along with the higher costs of new drugs, accounted for much of the increased costs, Yabroff said. However, hospital costs still made up the largest percentage of the increased costs.

Yabroff noted that these costs do not include many of the newest, and most expensive, drugs in use.

The researchers believe that these expensive chemotherapy drugs will place a strain on Medicare. Therefore, Medicare needs to plan how to pay for new treatments and may have to find ways to identify those patients who will benefit the most from these expensive treatments and restrict their use to those patients.

One expert says that increasing costs for cancer treatment are having a significant effect on Medicare's ability to provide them and a patient's ability to pay for them.

"There were changes to Medicare payment policy over the period of this study. And they had significant impact on how physicians were reimbursed," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society. "The net result is that it may have influenced practice patterns that we are seeing, such as the transition from surgery and radiation therapy for prostate cancer."

Lichtenfeld noted that many new drugs have drive
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