Cost‐of‐illness of melanoma in Europe – a systematic review of the published literature

Abstract

Malignant melanoma accounts for the vast majority of skin cancer deaths. Primary prevention is used to increase knowledge about skin cancer and set incentives for a change in behaviour, which leads to a decrease in cases. Primary prevention may be cost‐effective or even cost saving. Cost‐of‐illness (COI) studies provide information on such potential savings. The purpose of this study is to give an overview on COI studies in European countries and to compare the COI in total and by cost categories. The results can be used to model potential cost savings from prevention. We conducted a systematic literature research in PubMed using the PRISMA checklist. All costs were converted into Euro and adjusted for the reference year 2012. For the ranking of countries according to their COI, all costs were adjusted for the purchasing power parity. All studies focusing on stage III–IV melanoma include information on hospital, hospice, and outpatient treatment. Costs for the treatment of advanced melanoma range between € 2972 in Italy and € 17 408 in Sweden after adjusting for purchasing power parity. Most studies on stage I–IV melanoma include costs of hospitalization, outpatient treatment and general practitioner consultation. Direct costs range from € 923 in Sweden to € 9829 in Denmark. Three articles also include information on indirect costs. Mortality costs vary between € 3511 in Sweden and € 20 408 in England, morbidity costs between € 103 in Sweden and € 4550 in England. We showed that costs for the treatment of skin cancer are moderately high in the included countries. Since after publication of the articles new costly drugs were approved in Europe, treatment costs of melanoma in Europe may be expected to have risen in the last few years, which means that there is a high expectable potential for prevention programmes to become cost‐effective or even cost saving.

Cost‐of‐illness of melanoma in Europe – a modelling approach

“…We identified two systematic reviews comparing international COI of MM . Here, publications on national COI were compared without estimations concerning countries with no cost information available.…”

“…To estimate the treatment costs of MM on a patient's level, a systematic literature research in Medline/PubMed was conducted. Further information on methodology and results of the review are reported elsewhere . The costs in the five included publications were converted into Euro and adjusted for the reference year 2012.…”

“…There are few COI studies on MM in European countries . We identified two systematic reviews comparing COI across selected countries . However, COI data are not available for most of the European countries.…”

Modelling first‐year cost‐of‐illness of melanoma attributable to sunbed use in Europe

“…To estimate the treatment costs of MM a systematic literature research in Medline/PubMed was conducted. Methodology and results of the review are reported elsewhere …”

“…The most conservative costing approach, that should be used therefore, was identified to be present in calculations based on publications including all stages of MM …”