Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: In this real-world evidence study we estimated the health care resource utilization (HCRU) among cancer patients in the Helsinki and Uusimaa region (HUS), Finland, an area with a population of 1.6 million inhabitants (30% of the Finnish population). Specifically, we looked at changes in the first year HCRU in 2015 vs. 2023 due to inpatient days among patients with myeloma, melanoma, and lung, colorectal, breast, kidney, and bladder cancer.
METHODS: The electronic health records of all patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis for cancer (C*) were collected from the HUS region. A total of 144 000 incident patients were identified between 2015-2023. The collected data included diagnoses, contacts, pathology, in-hospital treatments, prescriptions, radiology, and deaths. Inpatients days recorded with a cancer diagnosis (C*) were extracted from all healthcare contacts and priced according to the national specialty-specific unit costs. The number of inpatient days and related costs were analysed with mean cumulative functions.
RESULTS: The first-year inpatient days and related costs were highest among patients with myeloma, colorectal cancer and lung cancer, and lowest among patients with melanoma and breast cancer. In all the cancers studied, the HCRU due to inpatient days was lower in 2023 when compared to 2015. The largest relative reduction in the first year HCRU due to inpatient days was observed among patients with breast cancer (79% reduction in both events and costs) and melanoma (74% in events and 73% in costs). The smallest reduction was observed among patients with bladder cancer (22% in events and 16% in costs).
CONCLUSIONS: In this study, which is part of the Collaboration Research (CORE) dataset of Medaffcon, we show an overall decrease in the first year HCRU due to inpatient days among cancer patients in the HUS region.