The RCC treatment landscape has evolved dramatically over the past decade. The purpose of this study is to present a real-world data estimation of RCC's cost-of-illness for this tumour's clinical pathway.
This investigation is a population-based cohort study using real-world data, which considers all RCC incident cases diagnosed in Local Unit 6 of the Province of Padua in 2016 and 2017 as registered by the Veneto Cancer Registry. Data on drug prescriptions, the use of medical devices, hospital admissions, and visits to outpatient clinics and emergency departments were collected by means of administrative databases. We evaluated the costs of all healthcare procedures performed in the 2 years of follow-up post-RCC diagnosis. The overall and annual average real-world costs per patient, both as a whole and by single item, were calculated and stratified by stage of disease at diagnosis.
The analysis involved a population of 148 patients with a median age of 65.8 years, 66.22% of whom were male. Two years after diagnosis, the average total costs amounted to €21,429 per patient. There is a steady increment in costs with increasing stage at diagnosis, with a total amount of €41,494 spent 2 years after diagnosis for stage IV patients, which is 2.44 times higher than the expenditure for stage I patients (€17,037). In the first year, hospitalization appeared to be the most expensive item for both early and advanced disease. In the second year, however, outpatient procedures were the main cost driver in the earlier stages, whereas anticancer drugs accounted for the highest costs in the advanced stages.
This observational study provides real-world and valuable estimates of RCC's cost-of-illness, which could enable policymakers to construct dynamic economic cost-effectiveness evaluation models based on real world costs' evaluation.
BMC urology. 2022 Dec 19*** epublish ***
Alessandra Buja, Giuseppe De Luca, Maura Gatti, Claudia Cozzolino, Massimo Rugge, Manuel Zorzi, Mario Gardi, Matteo Sepulcri, Davide Bimbatti, Vincenzo Baldo, Marco Maruzzo, Umberto Basso, Vittorina Zagonel
Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, Vascular Sciences, and Public Health, University of Padua, Via Loredan, 18, 35131, Padua, Italy. ., Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, Vascular Sciences, and Public Health, University of Padua, Via Loredan, 18, 35131, Padua, Italy., Statistics Department, University of Padua, Padua, Italy., Soft-Tissue, Peritoneum and Melanoma Surgical Oncology Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Padua, Italy., Department of Medicine - DIMED, Pathology and Cytopathology Unit, University of Padua, Padua, Italy., Veneto Tumor Registry, Azienda Zero, Padua, Italy., Unit of Urology, Ospedale Sant'Antonio, Azienda Ospedale Università-Padova, Padua, Italy., Radiotherapy Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Padua, Italy., Oncology 1 Unit, Department of Oncology, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Padua, Italy.