Health Care Expenditures of Lung Cancer: A Turkish Experience

Lung cancer is by far the most common cancer among men in the world and in Turkey. In this study, by analyzing the hospital records of 83 patients who died because of lung cancer between 1998 and 2002, we aimed to estimate the health care expenditures associated with the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer patients at a uni­versity hospital.The total amount spent for lung cancer diagnosis and treatment per patient was estimated as 8257.-$ and the majority of this cost con­sisted of “treatment costs”. In this group of patients, mean duration between the onset of symptoms and time of diagnosis was 4.5 months, and mean survival after diagnosis was 7 months.Since there are almost 10 000 new lung cancer cases annually in Turkey, it was calculated that 81 million dollars is required for di­agnosis and treatment costs of the disease, an amount much greater than what would be needed to initiate effective primary preventive strategies focusing on tobacco control such as “not starting to smo­ke” or “quitting smoking”.