The cost of cancer care in India requires careful reporting and interpretation

Author's reply – Out-of-pocket payment and financial risk protection for breast cancer treatment: a prospective study from India

“…We are also limited by the paucity of cost data in the cited publication from further comments. 1 , 3 As per Table S3 of supplementary material in our paper, the median total cost of treatment was ₹ 0.21 million with a third interquartile value of ₹ 0.35 million. 2 The authors have misread the total medical cost in the table as total cost of treatment.…”

“…We thank Dr. Sharma and Dr. Chakraborty 1 for sharing their insights on our paper “Out-of-pocket payment and financial risk protection for breast cancer treatment: a prospective study from India.” 2 We are thankful for acknowledging our findings on low reimbursement of breast cancer treatment and suggesting a nationwide study from various healthcare setups to provide reliable estimates on financial catastrophe of breast cancer treatment in India. We provide some explanation on a) generalisation of cost based on single centred study, b) non-availability of cost-of-care estimate by varying treatment strategies and molecular sub-type c) non-availability of cost-of-care estimate due to adverse effects of treatment.…”

“… 2 Moreover, the variation in costs of treatment in institutions like TMC and others private health centres underscores the need for a more representative assessment of treatment expenses across various healthcare settings as Dr Sharma and Dr Chakraborty have suggested. 1 …”

“…Thank you for pointing out the need for understanding financial implication by subtypes in breast cancer. 1 A detailed presentation of the results according to the various treatment related factors and molecular subtypes is beyond the scope of our paper. However, we describe the brief results of the estimates by molecular subtype from our sample.…”