The study, published last week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, examined the trials of more than 750,000 cancer patients 65 and older on Medicare as they traveled to, waited for and underwent treatment for some of the most common cancers afflicting Americans. The scientists assigned a value of $15.23 -- the median U.S. wage rate in 2002 -- to each hour spent.
"Cancer is more than the just the dollars and cents for the medicines and the treatments and the doctors. It's also the lost opportunities for the patients," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society of the study. Lichtenfeld praised the innovation of looking at more than just dollars spent on treatment when considering the burden of cancer on American society.
The scientists found that victims of ovarian cancer spend about 368 hours in the first year receiving treatment; lung cancer patients traveled, waited and were treated for 272 hours; and those with kidney cancer lost 193 hours in the first year after diagnosis.
"What we see here is a measure of the patient's burden of commitment," commented Drs. Larry Kessler of the Food and Drug Administration and Scott Ramsey of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in an editorial accompanying the study.
They also pointed out that younger patients usually receive even more extensive treatments than the patients featured in the study, and that cancers more likely to be diagnosed early, such as breast or prostate cancer, require much less treatment time.
###