Sally Pipes: "The High Cost of Finding Breast Cancer Too Late"

The following is an excerpt from an article by Sally Pipes, Founder & Chair of the Benjamin Rush Institute, published in RealClearHealth. Click here to read the full article in your browser.

Finding cancer late carries a terrible price, in both lives and dollars. A new study led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society puts some startling numbers behind that familiar truth.

Using Medicare data on cancer patients aged 66 and older, researchers calculated that cancer-attributable medical costs averaged nearly $122,000 during the final year before a cancer death. Patients diagnosed after their cancers had already spread generally incurred the highest costs, while costs tended to be lower for earlier-stage disease.

Breast cancer offers an especially powerful example of the value of early detection. Among women whose breast cancer is caught before it spreads beyond the breast, five-year relative survival is 100%. Once the cancer has spread to distant parts of the body, it falls to 33.8%.

The lesson for policymakers is clear. Our health system should treat clinically appropriate early detection as high-value care — the kind that can save lives and reduce patients’ chances of facing the extraordinary costs and burdens of advanced disease. Efforts to restrict or delay access to screening in the name of financial prudence can be a false economy.

Breast cancer accounts for more than 15% of all new cancer cases in the United States. This year alone, an estimated 321,910 women will be diagnosed with the disease — and more than 42,000 will die from it.

The financial toll is enormous, too. Americans spent $29.8 billion on breast cancer medical care and prescription drugs in 2020 — more than on any other cancer.

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