OBJECTIVE: According to experts from the Ministry of Health of the Moscow region Lung cancer (LC) is one of the most costly oncological diseases. Aim of the study was to assess the annual costs of drug therapy in Moscow region of patients with LC.

METHODS: The analytical model was constructed to estimate costs of different types of drug therapy in Moscow for patients with ICD C34. The data sources were database of reimbursed drug prescriptions of Ministry of Health of the Moscow region.

RESULTS: We have estimated that among patients with LC that the most prescribed type of drug therapy (not including concomitant treatment) is chemotherapy (51,21% of total amount of drug prescriptions), then targeted therapy (40,23%), immune therapy (5,17%) and hormone therapy (3,38%).

We have calculated that the cost of these types of drug therapy of LC are 5,64% for chemotherapy (of total budget cost of C34 treatment), 79,4% for targeted therapy, 14,2% for immune therapy and 0,75% for hormone therapy.

Among the chemotherapy drugs the most costly is paclitaxel (37,6% of chemotherapy cost), for targeted therapy – afatinib (27,49% of targeted therapy cost), for immune therapy - pembrolizumab (80,2% of immune therapy cost) and for hormone therapy - abirateron (66,5% of hormone therapy cost).

CONCLUSIONS: The cost structure for drug therapy of patients with LC in Moscow region shows that the most expensive is targeted therapy (79,4% of all costs for drug therapy of LC excluding concomitant treatment).