Background and objectives:The standard treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer (CC) is chemoradiotherapy (CTRT) followed by high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDRBT). The ideal scenario would be under novel intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) radiation techniques over three-dimensional (3D) radiation therapy. However, radiotherapy (RT) centres in low-and middle-income countries have limited equipment for teletherapy services like HDRBT. This is why the 3D modality is still in use. The objective of this study was to analyse costs in a comparison of 3D versus IMRT versus VMAT based on clinical staging.
Materials and methods:From 02/01/2022 to 05/01/2023 a prospective registry of the costs for oncological management was carried out for patients with locally advanced CC who received CTRT ± HDRBT. This included the administration of radiation with chemotherapy. The cost associated with patient and family transfers and hours in the hospital was also identified. These expenses were used to project the direct and indirect costs of 3D versus IMRT versus VMAT.
Results:The treatment regimens for stage IIIC2, including 3D and novel techniques, are those with the highest costs.
Background
Financial toxicity arises in cancer patients due to the objective financial burden of the disease or treatment, being associated with worse clinical outcomes. Direct non-medical spending on cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy in Peru under its publicly funded health system has not been described.
Objective
To know the expenses related to the transfer of the radiotherapy outpatient.
Methodology
For patients who started radiation therapy in 2021, treatment demographics and expenses related to transporting the patient from home to the radiation therapy center were prospectively collected. Association and connection tests were used, such as the Mann–Whitney/Kruskal–Wallis
U
-test and Spearman’s Rho. A value of
p
< 0.05 is considered statistically significant.
Results
398 patients were collected, with average weekly expenses for transportation, lodging and food of $17.04, $6.69 and $45.91, respectively. Confirmation was positive between weekly spending and remoteness, likewise it was negative between effective teletherapy and remoteness, both analyses being statistically significant.
Conclusion
The expense associated with transfer for radiotherapy is high, exceeding the average monthly income of the patient, as a consequence they have a worse therapeutic result, and may cause financial toxicity in cancer patients.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.