News

In the June 2012 issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, Managing Principal Brian Gorin and Manager Sara Eapen outline the results of a study they conducted to determine the total direct health care costs of treating metastatic breast cancer and to identify the drivers of these costs. The study “The economic burden of metastatic breast cancer: a U.S. managed care perspective” was commissioned by Veridex LLC and coauthored by Professor Alberto Montero of the University of Miami and Paulette Adler of Veridex.

Using a large private health insurance claims database, the researchers identified 7,698 women with a breast cancer diagnosis, divided the study population into five treatment subgroups (endocrine therapy, HER-2 targeted therapy, concomitant HER-2 targeted and endocrine therapy, cytotoxic chemotherapy, and no systemic therapy), and evaluated the patients’ monthly costs of medical resource utilization.

The team’s findings show that the patients who received no systemic therapy had the highest treatment costs, and the patients who received systemic endocrine therapy had the lowest costs; that outpatient costs account for the majority of the overall per-patient, per-month costs; and that the total average expenditure to treat metastatic breast cancer is about $250,000 per patient.