A new nationwide study in the US found that worry about costs is preventing many cancer survivors from getting the medical care they need: the researchers said the study raises concerns about the long-term health and wellbeing of cancer survivors.

You can read about the study, led by Dr Kathryn E Weaver, an assistant professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the 14 June online issue of Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society.

In their introduction the researchers pointed out that in the US, many cancer survivors now live many years after their diagnosis, emphasizing the importance of continued access to the healthcare they need, but there is not a lot of information on how easy this is for survivors.

So Weaver and colleagues decided to investigate the extent to which financial worries might play a part, and also whether cancer history and race or ethnicity also made a difference to whether people accessed care or not.

For the study they looked at US National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data covering 2003 to 2006 on 6,602 adult cancer survivors and 104,364 people with no history of cancer. They then looked for links between self-reports of foregoing medical care because of cost against cancer history and race or ethnicity.

The results showed that:

• Overall, 18 per cent of US cancer survivors (more than 2 million people) went without one or more needed medical services because of cost concerns.


• This broke down as: 7.8 per cent of cancer survivors went without medical care, 9.9 per cent went without prescription drugs, 11.3 per cent went without dental care and 2.7 per cent went without mental health care, because of cost concerns.


• Among the under 65-year olds, cancer survivors were 1.5 to 2.0 times more likely to delay or go without all types of medical care than those with no history of cancer.


• Hispanic and black cancer survivors were more likely to forego prescription drugs and dental care than white survivors.

The authors concluded that:

"More than 2 million US cancer survivors did not get 1 or more needed medical services because of financial concerns during the studied period."

They said more studies are needed to determine how not receiving medical care impacts the quality of life and survival of former cancer patients.

Weaver told the press that:

"Although the large number of survivors going without care was somewhat surprising, it has long been recognized that cancer can have a negative impact on the financial health of survivors."

""This is important because cancer survivors have many medical needs that persist for years after their diagnosis and treatment," she added, stressing that: "the implications of this financial stress for their ongoing medical care are just beginning to be recognized".

She said, however, the study did not look at what types of medical care were not being received and to what extent they might be cancer-related.

She also commented it will be interesting to see how the current health reforms will affect medical care access for cancer survivors in the years to come.

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