Follow-up cost of breast cancer patients with localized disease after primary treatment: a randomized trial

Abstract

We studied the cost of follow-up of 472 breast cancer patients without distant metastasis after primary treatment in four different schedules in a randomized trial. The mean follow-up was 4.2 years. The four schedules differed in frequency of follow-up visits (every third or sixth month) and in intensity of diagnostic examinations (routine or on clinical grounds). Neither the frequency of visits nor the intensity of diagnostic examinations had any effect on disease-free or overall survival of patients. The total costs of follow-up, however, were different in the four follow-up schedules and varied between arms per patient from 1050 to 2269 euros and per detected recurrence from 4166 to 9149 euros. Outpatient visits every third month compared to every sixth month and routine examinations in the follow-up of asymptomatic primary breast cancer patients do not improve patient disease-free or overall survival, but increase the costs of follow-up 2.2 times.