18811 Crowdfunding for the treatment of cutaneous malignancies: Trends, correlates, and money raised

Abstract

Patients increasingly use online crowdfunding to offset costs associated with disease treatment. Here, we investigate the use of crowdfunding for the treatment of cutaneous malignancies and analyze how characteristics of online crowdfunding campaigns correlate with funds raised. GoFundMe campaigns created before July 2019 were selected based on their inclusion of disease keywords. Several binary variables were recorded from descriptions of melanoma, basal cell carcinoma (BCC), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) campaigns which met these criteria. Cutaneous malignancy campaigns increased 14.4-fold in quantity over the last 6 years. Of the 676 campaigns included, 420 were for melanoma treatment (62%), 112 for BCC (17%), 75 for SCC (11%), and 69 for CTCL (10%) treatments; melanoma, BCC, SCC, and CTCL campaigns raised $5787, $4815, $4842, and $9096 on average, respectively. We identified specific features associated with higher funds raised, including reports of physicians by name, participation in clinical trials, reports of treatment location, and inclusion of family pictures. Interestingly, funds for scientifically unsupported therapies correlated with significantly higher average funds raised for melanoma ($8829 > $5771, P < .05). In addition, inclusion of physician name correlated with significantly increased average funds raised for CTCL ($29,374 > $7242, P < .05) and SCC campaigns ($10,701 > $4466, P < .05). The authors hope that these findings elucidate why some dermatologic crowdfunding campaigns may raise more money than others. In addition, our results raise concerns about dermatologic crowdfunding’s unauthorized use of physician names and possible facilitation of access to scientifically unsupported treatments.