Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Sep 7;18(18):9447.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18189447.

First-Year Healthcare Resource Utilization Costs of Five Major Cancers in Japan

Tomone Watanabe  1   2 , Rei Goto  3 , Yoko Yamamoto  1 , Yuichi Ichinose  1 , Takahiro Higashi  1   2
Affiliations

First-Year Healthcare Resource Utilization Costs of Five Major Cancers in Japan

Tomone Watanabe et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Reports on the expenditure of cancer treatments per patient using comprehensive data remain unavailable in Japan. This study aimed to use Japan's cancer registry data and health service utilization data for evaluating the disease-specific, per-patient costs of five major cancers-stomach, lung, colorectal, liver, and breast cancers. We used a database linking the 2017 data from a hospital-based cancer registry and the health service utilization data from the Diagnosis Procedure Combination survey. All patients who started their first treatment course at each hospital were included. The costs were calculated using the total volume of the health services provided and the unit fee information included in the data. We analyzed 304,698 patients. Lung cancer had the highest healthcare cost per-patient for the first year of diagnosis and the longest median hospitalization duration. Conversely, breast cancer showed the lowest cost and the shortest median hospitalization duration. However, in the first month after diagnosis, colorectal cancer showed the highest cost. Subsequently, the gaps between the costs of the five common cancers drastically diminished. The cancer type having the longest hospitalization duration had the highest overall healthcare resource utilization costs. This information is essential for care planning and research studies.

Keywords: Japan; healthcare costs; major cancers.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Monthly healthcare cost of each of the five major cancers per-patient.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Monthly healthcare cost of each of the five major cancers per-patient stratified by age.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Fitzmaurice C., Abate D., Abbasi N., Abbastabar H., Abd-Allah F., Abdel-Rahman O., Abdelalim A., Abdoli A., Abdollahpour I., Abdulle A.S.M., et al. Global, Regional, and National Cancer Incidence, Mortality, Years of Life Lost, Years Lived with Disability, and Disability-Adjusted Life-Years for 29 Cancer Groups, 1990 to 2017: A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. JAMA Oncol. 2019;5:1749–1768. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mariotto A.B., Yabroff K.R., Shao Y., Feuer E.J., Brown M.L. Projections of the cost of cancer care in the United States: 2010–2020. J. Natl. Cancer Inst. 2011;103:117–128. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djq495. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sullivan R., Peppercorn J., Sikora K., Zalberg J., Meropol N.J., Amir E., Khayat D., Boyle P., Autier P., Tannock l.F., et al. Delivering affordable cancer care in high-income countries. Lancet Oncol. 2011;12:933–980. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70141-3. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aggarwal A., Ginsburg O., Fojo T. Cancer economics, policy and politics: What informs the debate? Perspectives from the EU, Canada and US. J. Cancer Policy. 2014;2:1–11. doi: 10.1016/j.jcpo.2014.02.002. - DOI
    1. National Cancer Center, Cancer Statistics in Japan. 2021. [(accessed on 28 August 2021)]. Available online: https://ganjoho.jp/public/qa_links/report/statistics/pdf/cancer_statisti....

Publication types