OBJECTIVES

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. Lebanon has the sixth highest rate of breast cancer globally. The aim of this study is to identify the resources contributing the most to the financial burden of breast cancer and to determine costs of treating breast cancer in Lebanon from Private payer’s perspective.

METHODS

Data was gathered retrospectively over a 10-year period (2008-2017) with a total number of 3758 patients using GlobeMed Dataset. Yearly total and average costs per patient were calculated for four categories: inpatients pharma, inpatients non-pharma, outpatient pharma and outpatient non-pharma. These costs were also calculated for the total population per year. Analysis was cross validated with the published data of the public payer (Ministry of Public Health of Lebanon, MOPH).

RESULTS

From 2008-2017 & yearly, among the four categories of costs, inpatients pharma costs were the highest of all. Almost half of the total cost of $30,691,075 comes from inpatient pharma. The lowest percentage of inpatients pharma costs was 47% and the highest was 60% in 2011 and 2012 respectively. From 2008 to 2013, the total drug cost of breast cancer was $7,638,725, the mean associated 6-year drug cost per patient amounted to $5,926, and the mean sample size was 200 patients per year. Similar mean associated 6-year drug cost per patient, amounting to $5,926, was published by the largest payer in Lebanon.

CONCLUSIONS

The cost of breast cancer remains a heavy burden on payers in Lebanon and is expected to increase with new medications introduced. By breaking down the total cost per year, findings show that inpatients pharma costs contributed the most to the financial burden of breast cancer. The limitations of this study are that staging of the disease and inflation over the period were not captured in the analysis.