Authors:
Sandra Mallone, Andrea Tavilla, […], and Silvia Francisci, +10 (View all authors)
Abstract
An indirect approach was applied to the case-study of thyroid cancer (TC) and melanoma of the skin (MS) in Italy to identify health services (HS) for cancer patients and to enable cost estimation.
Within the Epicost-2 project, a self-controlled crossover design analysed TC and MS 2018 prevalent cases from Italian cancer registries. Controls (1:1) were matched to cases 18-6 months prior to diagnosis; increases between cases and controls in potentially cancer-related HS claims (P⩽5%) were identified.
Oncology and clinical experts validated cancer-related HS lists using statistical, clinical, and economic criteria.
The approach identified 202 and 333 cancer-related HS codes for TC and MS, respectively, aligned with clinical pathways.
The indirect approach reduced validation workload by 75% versus direct one.
The approach identifies the costs of cancer care that could also be reproduced in other countries with consistent results, and the approach applied to other cancers.