Cancer survivors face rising costs, report says

Cancer survivors a decade from now could be spending upward of $144 billion annually on medical costs. And that figure only begins to touch on the disease's full economic impact that also involves lost worker productivity, an extrapolation of data in a government study demonstrates.

Currently, there are more than 13 million cancer survivors in the U.S. That will grow to 18 million over the next decade, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

Annual medical costs for male cancer survivors averaged more than $8,000 a person between 2008 and 2011, according to the findings of a report published Thursday in the latest issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Female cancer survivors had an average cost of $8,400 associated with treatment of the disease.

Those expenditures are roughly $4,000 more than the yearly medical costs men and women without a history of cancer incur.

Productivity loss because of illness was estimated to cost male cancer survivors $3,700 annually from 2008 to 2011, while female cancer survivors incurred a loss of $4,000 annually for the same period.

Annual medical cost estimates were calculated with data compiled from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s 2008-2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Loss productivity was estimated through review of employment disability, health-related missed work days and days spent in bed because of illness.

The analysis found that close to 32% of survivors experienced limitations in their usual daily activities outside of work because of cancer. About 42% of those employed with a history of cancer reportedly had to make changes to their work hours and duties. In all, employment disability was found to account for about 75% of lost productivity among cancer survivors, according to the study.

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