Lifetime Costs of Surviving Cancer-A Queensland Study (COS-Q): Protocol of a Large Healthcare Data Linkage Study.

Katharina M D Merollini,Joanne F Aitken,Michael G Kimlin,Louisa G Gordon

doi:10.3390/ijerph17082831

Abstract

Australia-wide, there are currently more than one million cancer survivors. There are over 32 million world-wide. A trend of increasing cancer incidence, medical innovations and extended survival places growing pressure on healthcare systems to manage the ongoing and late effects of cancer treatment. There are no published studies of the long-term health service use and cost of cancer survivorship on a population basis in Australia. All residents of the state of Queensland, Australia, diagnosed with a first primary malignancy from 1997–2015 formed the cohort of interest. State and national healthcare databases are linked with cancer registry records to capture all health service utilization and healthcare costs for 20 years (or death, if this occurs first), starting from the date of cancer diagnosis, including hospital admissions, emergency presentations, healthcare costing data, Medicare services and pharmaceuticals. Data analyses include regression and economic modeling. We capture the whole journey of health service contact and estimate long-term costs of all cancer patients diagnosed and treated in Queensland by linking routinely collected state and national healthcare data. Our results may improve the understanding of lifetime health effects faced by cancer survivors and estimate related healthcare costs. Research outcomes may inform policy and facilitate future planning for the allocation of healthcare resources according to the burden of disease.

Highlights

The number of cancer survivors has exceeded 32 million [1] with an estimated 16.9 million people currently affected in the United States (US) alone [2] and over one million in Australia [3]
By linking state and national healthcare data we will capture the whole journey of health service contact and we will be able to estimate related costs of all cancer patients diagnosed and treated in Queensland over a period of up to 20 years
Not having control cases will not affect our study aims and we will be able to report on overall healthcare costs incurred since cancer diagnosis

Summary

Introduction

The number of cancer survivors has exceeded 32 million [1] with an estimated 16.9 million people currently affected in the United States (US) alone [2] and over one million in Australia [3].The most widely used definition of cancer survivorship is from the National Coalition for CancerSurvivorship in the US and includes for each person the period ‘from the time of diagnosis, through the balance of his or her life, regardless of the ultimate cause of death’ [4,5]. The number of cancer survivors has exceeded 32 million [1] with an estimated 16.9 million people currently affected in the United States (US) alone [2] and over one million in Australia [3]. The most widely used definition of cancer survivorship is from the National Coalition for Cancer. Survivorship in the US and includes for each person the period ‘from the time of diagnosis, through the balance of his or her life, regardless of the ultimate cause of death’ [4,5]. Different stages of survivorship comprise acute (diagnosis to treatment), chronic (ongoing) and long-term/late survivorship Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 2831; doi:10.3390/ijerph17082831 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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