Objective: To assess the economic burden of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) in incident patients and the burden by disease stage in Spain.
Methods: We developed a Markov model from a social perspective simulating the natural history of EOC and its four stages, with a 10-year time horizon, 3-week cycles, 3% discount rate, and 2016 euros. Healthcare resource utilization and costs were estimated by disease stage. Direct healthcare costs (DHC) included early screening, genetic counselling, medical visits, diagnostic tests, surgery, chemotherapy, hospitalizations, emergency services, and palliative care. Direct non-healthcare costs (DNHC) included formal and informal care. Indirect costs (IC) included labour productivity losses due to temporary and permanent leaves, and premature death. Epidemiology data and resource use were taken from the literature and validated for Spain by the OvarCost group using a Delphi method.
Results: The total burden of EOC over 10 years was 3102 mill euros: 15.1% in stage I, 3.9% in stage II, 41.0% in stage III, and 40.2% in stage IV. Annual average cost/patient was €24,111 and it was €8,641; €14,184; €33,858, and €42,547 in stages I-IV, respectively. Of total costs, 71.2% were due to DHC, 24.7% to DNHC, and 4.1% to IC.
Conclusions: EOC imposes a significant economic burden on the national healthcare system and society in Spain. Investment in better early diagnosis techniques might increase survival and patients' quality of life. This would likely reduce costs derived from late stages, consequently leading to a substantial reduction of the economic burden associated with EOC.
Keywords: Economic burden of disease; Epithelial ovarian cancer; Healthcare resource utilization; Spain.