Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Measuring current and future cost of skin cancer in England

2013; Oxford University Press; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/pubmed/fdt032

1741-3850

Laura Vallejo‐Torres, Stephen Morris, Jonas Minet Kinge, V. Poirier, Julia Verne,

Skin Protection and Aging

Increasing incidence of and mortality from skin cancer are posing a large financial burden on the NHS in England. Information provided by cost-of-illness (CoI) studies are used in policy making and are particularly useful for measuring the potential savings from averting a case of disease. We estimate the cost of skin cancer in England, and model future costs up to 2020. We compare two costing approaches (top-down and bottom-up). We estimate that costs due to skin cancer were in the range of £106–£112 million in 2008. These figures are very closely related to those provided by the Department of Health (estimated to be £104.0 million in 2007–8 and £105.2 million 2008–9). The expected cost per case of malignant melanoma was estimated to be £2607 and £2560, using the bottom-up and top-down approaches, respectively. The mean cost per case of non-melanoma skin cancer was £889 and £1226, respectively. We estimate that the cost to the NHS due to skin cancer will amount to over £180 million in 2020. Effective prevention of skin cancer might not only reduce a significant burden of disease but it could also save considerable resources to the NHS.