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Medical resource utilizations and economic burden in Chinese cancer patients with chemotherapy-induced anemia: A populational database study

  • Health Economics
  • Published:
Chinese Journal of Cancer Research

Abstract

Objective

Most of published studies emphasized the medical cost of treating chemotherapy-induced anemia (CIA) by using specific agents, for example, epoetin α, epoetin β, darbepoetin α or combined with red blood cell transfusions, however, the investigation of the overall medical resources utilizations and economic burden of CIA is still limited. Besides, such studies which emphasized Chinese population still lack. The aim of this study is to investigate the medical resource utilization and the economic burden of Chinese cancer patients with CIA by using a populational representative claim database.

Methods

The data for this study are from the 2000-2003 Population Health Insurance Research Database (PHIRD) in Taiwan. On the basis of issuing catastrophic illness cards in the enrollment data files, a total of 26,053 beneficiaries were identified from the PHIRD, who were newly diagnosed with these four cancers in 2001 and 2002 (2001: n=12,954; 2002: n=13099). A generalized linear model (GLM) was employed for analyzing the differences of medical resource utilization and economic burden between the anemic and non-anemic groups.

Results

Analyses showed that the anemic patients were significantly more likely to have longer length of hospital stay than non-anemic patients (P<0.05) across all these four cancers and in two study periods (except women breast cancer in 2002/03). As regards the health care expenditures, the average one-year total medical cost was USD$8,982 (2001/02) and USD$8,990 (2002/03) for anemic patients among these four cancers, and USD$7,769 (2001/02) and USD$7713 (2002/03) for non-anemic patients (P<0.0001). As for ambulatory costs, anemic patients’ was significantly higher than non-anemic patients’ for lung cancer (in 2001/02), women breast cancer (in 2001/02 and 2002/03) and the summarized data (in 2001/02). As for inpatient costs, anemic patients’ was significantly higher than non-anemic patients’ for gastric cancer (in 2002/03), colon and rectal cancer (in 2001/02 and 2002/03), lung cancer (in 2001/02 and 2002/03), women breast cancer (in 2001/02) and the summarized data (in 2001/02 and 2002/03).

Conclusion

This study is the first study to demonstrate that cancer patients who receive chemotherapy and with anemia utilize more medical resources and have heavier economic burden among Chinese cancer patients. Although the Population Health Insurance Program in Taiwan was established to provide more low-burdened medical care for all cancer patients, further effort is still needed to reduce the economic burden for cancer patients who have specific complications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nursing, Taipei College of Nursing, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chieh-Yu Liu  (劉介宇)

  2. Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Taiwan Health Research Institutes, Zhunan, Taiwan

    Tsang-Wu Liu  (劉滄梧) & Li-Tzong Chen  (陳立宗)

  3. Institute of Cancer Research, Taiwan Health Research Institutes, Tainan, Taiwan

    Jih-Shin Liu  (劉季鑫) & Chin-Fu Hsiao  (蕭金福)

  4. Department of Nursing, Taipei College of Nursing, No.365 Min-Der Rd., Bei-Tou District (11219), Taipei, Taiwan

    Chieh-Yu Liu  (劉介宇)

Authors
  1. Chieh-Yu Liu  (劉介宇)
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  2. Tsang-Wu Liu  (劉滄梧)
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  3. Jih-Shin Liu  (劉季鑫)
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  4. Chin-Fu Hsiao  (蕭金福)
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  5. Li-Tzong Chen  (陳立宗)
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Correspondence to Chieh-Yu Liu  (劉介宇).

Additional information

This work was supported by a grant from Roche Co., Taiwan.

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Liu, CY., Liu, TW., Liu, JS. et al. Medical resource utilizations and economic burden in Chinese cancer patients with chemotherapy-induced anemia: A populational database study. Chin. J. Cancer Res. 20, 307–315 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11670-008-0307-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11670-008-0307-6

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