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OBJECTIVE: We sought to obtain estimates of trends in initial treatment costs during the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) era that account for the changing patient case-mix associated with screening. SUBJECTS: We used reimbursement claims for Medicare-eligible subjects diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer between 1991 and 1999. Patients were grouped by initial treatment, with 17,846 receiving radical prostatectomy (RP), 25,933 receiving external beam radiotherapy (XRT), and 4525 receiving brachytherapy (BT). METHODS: Cancer-attributable costs were computed by subtracting noncancer costs from total Medicare reimbursements among newly diagnosed cancer patients. Noncancer costs were estimated in 2 ways: (1) average costs among age-matched, cancer-free control subjects (control method) and (2) projections based on claims from subjects before diagnosis (prediagnosis method). Adjusted annual percent change in cancer-attributable costs was calculated using multivariate generalized linear models. RESULTS: Noncancer costs increased at a much lower rate among men prior to diagnosis (3.8% annually) than among the general Medicare population (10.9%). The 2 approaches yielded different results; RP costs declined by 2.4% annually (prediagnosis method) versus 6.2% (control method); XRT costs declined by 1.5% versus 5.8%; and BT costs declined by 4.1% versus 8.3%. CONCLUSIONS: Because of self-selection of PSA screening, men diagnosed with prostate cancer today are now healthier overall than men in the general population and are considerably healthier than men diagnosed previously. Estimates of cancer-attributable costs that do not account for this healthy selection effect are likely to be biased. Declines in cancer-attributable treatment costs are evident even after accounting for a healthy screenee effect, suggesting that there has been a real reduction in cancer treatment costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to examine how multimorbidity influences the prevalence of financial burden among older adults with heart disease, diabetes, or cancer.The study was a cross-sectional analysis of prospective observational cohort survey study.Older adults (age 65 or older) who did not report 1/6 major chronic illnesses (n = 2773; reference group), reported 1/3 major chronic illnesses without comorbidity (heart disease n = 206; diabetes n = 460; cancer n = 417), and reported 1/3 major chronic illnesses with comorbidity (heart disease n = 232; diabetes n = 202; cancer n = 109).The measures were presence of chronic diseases (heart disease, diabetes, cancer), comorbid chronic diseases (stroke, lung disease, dementia), medical-related financial burden (credit card debt due to medical costs, paying medical bills over time), and overall financial burden (financial help from family, credit card debt, help with food, utilities, and other necessities).The proportion reporting financial burden ranged from 15% to 27% across samples. Heart disease was unrelated to medical or overall financial burden, regardless of comorbidity. Diabetes was unrelated to financial burden except diabetes without comorbidity was associated with lower odds of overall financial burden compared to healthy older adults (odds ratio [OR] = 0.655, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.468-0.917). Cancer with comorbidity, but not cancer without comorbidity, was associated with greater odds of medical related (OR = 1.678, 95% CI: 1.057-2.664) and overall financial burden (OR = 1.748, 95% CI: 1.064-2.872).The association of multimorbidity with financial burden likely varies based on specific diseases. Future research on financial burden should focus on specific disease combinations such as cancer with comorbidity.

Objective: To perform a population-based analysis to compare the complications and cost of laparoscopic and robotically assisted adnexal surgery., Methods: A nationwide database was used to analyze the use and outcomes of robotically assisted adnexal surgery from 2009 to 2012. Multivariable mixed effects regression models were developed to examine predictors of use of robotic surgery. After propensity score matching, complications and cost were compared between robotically assisted and laparoscopic surgery., Results: Eighty-seven thousand five hundred fourteen women were identified. From 2009 to 2012, performance of robotic-assisted oophorectomy increased from 3.5% (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.2-3.8%) to 15.0% (95% CI 14.4-15.6%), whereas robotically assisted cystectomy rose from 2.4% (95% CI 2.0-2.7%) to 12.9% (95% CI 12.2-13.5%). The overall complication rate was 7.1% (95% CI 4.0-10.2%) for robotically assisted compared with 6.0% (95% CI 2.9-9.1%) for laparoscopic oophorectomy (odds ratio [OR] 1.20, 95% CI 1.00-1.45; P=.052). Robotic-assisted oophorectomy was associated with a higher rate of intraoperative complications (3.4% compared with 2.1%, OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.21-2.13). The overall complication rate was 3.7% (95% CI -0.8 to 8.2%) after robotically assisted compared with 2.7% (95% CI -1.8 to 7.2%) for laparoscopic cystectomy (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.95-1.99). The intraoperative complication rate was higher for robotically assisted cystectomy (2.0% compared with 0.9%, OR 2.40, 95% CI 1.31-4.38). Compared with laparoscopy, robotically assisted oophorectomy was associated with $2,504 (95% CI $2,356-2,652) increased total costs and robotically assisted cystectomy $3,310 (95% CI $3,082-3,581) higher costs., Conclusion: Use of robotically assisted adnexal surgery increased rapidly. Compared with laparoscopic surgery, robotically assisted adnexal surgery is associated with substantially greater costs and a small, but statistically significant, increase in intraoperative complications.

Objective: To examine methods for identifying and recruiting prostate cancer patients prior to initiating treatment to gain insight into the treatment decision process and avoid recall bias., Study Design and Setting: One recruitment strategy involved providers and nursing staff approaching patients in community and academic urology clinics. The second recruitment strategy used electronic pathology reports to identify newly diagnosed cases in real time in an integrated health system. Our recruitment goal was to have patients complete the survey about the decision-making process prior to initiating therapy., Results: The two recruitment methods yielded different response rates. Of the 226 eligible participants approached in urology clinics, 187 (83%) returned a completed baseline survey. Of the 1177 surveys mailed to potentially eligible participants at KPNC, 617 (52%) returned a completed baseline survey. The number of surveys completed prior to treatment was 125 (67%) for the clinic recruitment approach and 437 (71%) for the electronic medical record approach. Younger participants and patients with less aggressive clinical characteristics were more likely to complete the survey before initiating treatment. Other patient demographic and clinical factors were not associated with the timing of survey return., Conclusions: Recruiting newly diagnosed patients prior to initiating treatment is feasible with both approach methods. The use of electronic medical records to identify subjects was more cost efficient, although it results in a lower response rate.

Background: Colorectal cancer is relatively frequent among adults of working age, yet few studies have examined treatment, outcomes, and costs for people under 65 years of age with this disease., Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the initial treatments, survival, cancer-related medical costs, and overall medical costs for working-aged persons with colorectal cancer in 2 large health insurance plans in Washington State, one a preferred provider organization (PPO) and the other a group model health maintenance organization (HMO)., Study Population: This study consisted of patients, aged 20-64 years, diagnosed with colorectal cancer in both health plans from 1996 to 1998. For each cancer case, up to 5 control subjects, matched on age and sex, were selected for the analysis., Methods: We calculated unadjusted, attributable, and overall medical costs using the Kaplan-Meier sample average estimator. We calculated relative mortality rates using Cox regression. We used propensity scores to adjust overall costs and survival for potential confounding factors., Results: Two hundred ten persons in the PPO and 136 persons in the HMO, aged 20-64 years, were diagnosed with cancer over the observation period and included in this study. Patients in the PPO were more likely to have local excision of their tumor (16% compared with 11%) and were less likely to receive chemotherapy (48% compared with 60%). The overall medical costs for the cancer cases were $46,000 in the HMO and $46,400 in the PPO (95% confidence interval for the difference: -$19,300 to 20,100). The cancer-attributable medical costs over 2 years were $40,400 in the HMO and $44,300 in the PPO (95% confidence interval for the difference: -$17,400 to 25,200). Survival was similar in the 2 health plans: the hazard ratio was 0.89 for those enrolled in the PPO (95% confidence interval: 0.50 to 1.59). Adjustment for potential confounding factors altered the results little., Conclusions: There were differences in the initial treatment of the patients in each health plan, but costs and survival were not significantly different between the 2 plans.

Background: Accurate estimation of medical care costs raises a host of issues, both practical and methodological., Objectives: This article reviews methods for estimating the long-term medical care costs associated with a cancer diagnosis., Methods: The authors consider data from administrative claims databases and describe the analytic challenges posed by these increasingly common resources. They present a number of statistical methods that are valid under censoring and describe methods for estimating mean costs and controlling for covariates. In addition, the authors compare two different approaches for estimating the cancer-related costs; namely, the portion of the long-term costs that may be attributed to the disease. Examples from economic studies of breast and colorectal cancer are presented., Results: In an analysis of data on colorectal cancer costs from the SEER-Medicare database, the two methods used to estimate expected long-term costs (one model based, one not model-based) yielded similar results. However, in calculating expected cancer-related costs, a method that included future medical costs among controls yielded quite different results from the method that did not include these future costs., Conclusions: Statistical methods for analyzing long-term medical costs under censoring are available and appropriate in many applications where total or disease-related costs are of interest. Several of these approaches are nonparametric and therefore may be expected to be robust against the non-standard features that are often encountered when analyzing medical cost data.

Dyslipidemia is very common in diabetics and substantially increases the risk of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease. Pharmacological therapy with 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitors ('statins') is effective for dyslipidemia, but the cost and efficacy of individual therapies vary. Therefore, the interest in cost-effective pharmacologic interventions for the prevention of cardiovascular disease events in diabetics has increased. In this article, the literature pertaining to the epidemiology, cost and efficacy of statins in preventing cardiovascular disease in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, in both the primary and secondary prevention settings, is reviewed. Cost-effectiveness studies of statins in the diabetic population are detailed, along with recommendations for further research.