The Economic Burden of Head and Neck Cancer: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

BackgroundThis systematic literature review aimed to evaluate and summarize the existing evidence on resource use and costs associated with the diagnosis and treatment of head and neck cancer (HNC) in adult patients, to better understand the currently available data. The costs associated with HNC are complex, as the disease involves multiple sites, and treatment may require a multidisciplinary medical team and different treatment modalities.MethodsDatabases (MEDLINE and Embase) were searched to identify studies published in English between October 2003 and October 2013 analyzing the economics of HNC in adult patients. Additional relevant publications were identified through manual searches of abstracts from recent conference proceedings.ResultsOf 606 studies initially identified, 77 met the inclusion criteria and were evaluated in the assessment. Most included studies were conducted in the USA. The vast majority of studies assessed direct costs of HNC, such as those associated with diagnosis and screening, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, surgery, side effects of treatment, and follow-up care. The costs of treatment far exceeded those for other aspects of care. There was considerable heterogeneity in the reporting of economic outcomes in the included studies; truly comparable cost data were sparse in the literature. Based on these limited data, in the US costs associated with systemic therapy were greater than costs for surgery or radiotherapy. However, this trend was not seen in Europe, where surgery incurred a higher cost than radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy.ConclusionsMost studies investigating the direct healthcare costs of HNC have utilized US databases of claims to public and private payers. Data from these studies suggested that costs generally are higher for HNC patients with recurrent and/or metastatic disease, for patients undergoing surgery, and for those patients insured by private payers. Further work is needed, particularly in Europe and other regions outside the USA; prospective studies assessing the cost associated with HNC would allow for more systematic comparison of costs, and would provide valuable economic information to payers, providers, and patients

Associations between expression levels of nucleotide excision repair proteins in lymphoblastoid cells and risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck

“…Squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (SCCHN), which comprises malignancies of the oral cavity, pharynx and larynx, is the sixth most common cancer and seventh leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide [1,2]. It has been estimated that new SCCHN cases have been increasing from 45,660 in 2007 to 63,030 in 2017 in the United States [3–5].…”

Detection of Head and Neck Cancer in Surgical Specimens Using Quantitative Hyperspectral Imaging

“…Because the large heterogeneity of cancer patients, in our study interpatient classification was not as accurate as intrapatient classification for the detection of cancerous tissue. Future work will continue to improve the diagnostic performance for interpatient classification from two aspects: (1) enlarge the training database by incorporating more hyperspectral dataset of a wide variety of surgical tissue samples; and (2) try deep learning-based algorithm to further boost the classification accuracy.…”

“…Worldwide, more than 500,000 patients are diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) each year, and thus posing substantial economic burdens (1, 2). Head and neck cancers comprise a heterogeneous group of tumors arising from the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, paranasal sinuses, and salivary and thyroid glands (3).…”

Multimodal nonlinear microscopy of head and neck carcinoma — toward surgery assisting frozen section analysis

“…Invasive and noninvasive treatment side‐effects derogates the patient's quality of life, including pain, physical and emotional dysfunctioning, or xerostomia . Furthermore, high economic burden is connected to head and neck cancer (eg, attributable costs were estimated to range between $5000 and $15,000 per case per year in the United States) . To minimize the overall burden, early diagnosis seems to be one of the most apparent solutions, because low‐stage tumors are often curable with function‐preserving treatments, improved prognosis, and reduced follow‐up care .…”