Cancer patients are abandoning medical care because the costs are simply too high and medical bills -- even among the insured -- are unmanageable, studies showed.

"There's a growing awareness that the cost of cancer treatment is unsustainable," said Dr Lee Schwartzberg, an oncologist who did a study examining the factors that contributed to patients quitting their oral cancer drugs.

"When it's an expensive drug, we have to have the hard discussion about a very substantial out-of-pocket payment. I ask: 'Do you want to spend this money for an average improvement of just a few months of life?' I'm very uncomfortable having those discussions because I want to focus on the patient getting better," added Schwartzberg, medical director of the West Clinic in Memphis.

Cancer is the second-leading cause of death in the US, after heart disease. The incidence is expected to increase with an aging population.

Until recently, almost all cancer drugs were administered intravenously. Today, about a quarter of them can be given orally, which means fewer visits to the doctor. But pills are often more expensive, have higher co-payments, and are reimbursed by insurers at lower rates than IV drugs, he noted.

Patients with co-payments of more than $500 were four times more likely to abandon treatment than those with co-payments of $100 or less in the US, Schwartzberg said.

Claims with the highest co-payments had a 25 per cent abandonment rate, compared with 6 per cent for co-payments of less than $100.

"Prices of drugs can't be set so outrageously high," he said. "We have a problem with cancer care ... All stake holders have to get together and compromise to translate this great science into great patient care without breaking the bank."

"Ninety-nine per cent of the patients in our study were insured and 83 per cent said they had prescription coverage. People still couldn't afford groceries and were spending life savings on cancer care," said Dr Yousuf Zafar, an internist at Duke University Health System, who did a separate study on the impact high medical bills have on patients' cancer treatment. – TradeArabia News Service