Journal article
Healthcare costs in patients with head and neck cancer
Supportive care in cancer, Vol.34(4), pp.1-9
2026
PMID: 41915075
Appears in Cancer Research Cluster Research Collection
Abstract
Purpose: The aim of this study was to quantify the healthcare costs of patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) in Australia and investigate factors associated with increased costs.
Methods: A sub-study was performed using linked patient data from 'Lifetime Costs of Surviving Cancer - A Queensland Study (COS-Q).' Queensland residents diagnosed with a first primary mucosal head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) between 1997 and 2015 and who incurred costs from 2013 to 2016 were included. Healthcare costs were reported as a total mean cost per patient per year and included emergency department (ED) costs, hospital admission costs, cost for medical and allied health services and pharmaceutical costs.
Results: There were 4929 patients with HNSCC included in the study. The total mean annual cost was $21,646 per patient with the highest costs in the first-year post treatment. Regional ($23,312) and rural ($33,627) patients experienced higher healthcare costs than those from major cities ($20,300, p < 0.001). Factors strongly associated with an increased overall healthcare cost included living in a remote location (RR 1.51, p < 0.001), having a nasopharynx (RR 1.41, p = 0.027) or hypopharynx (RR 1.60, p < 0.001) cancer or never married (RR 1.34, p < 0.001). There were 644 patients (13%) who developed a second primary malignancy and this sub-group experienced higher overall costs ($46,453 vs $24,966, p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Healthcare costs for patients with HNC are significant. Further research is needed to investigate ways to reduce healthcare utilisation and provide additional support in this cohort.
Details
- Title
- Healthcare costs in patients with head and neck cancer
- Authors
- Justin Smith (Corresponding Author) - Townsville HospitalMadhavi Chilkuri (Author) - James Cook UniversityDaniel Lindsay (Author) - The University of QueenslandKatharina M D Merollini (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Publication details
- Supportive care in cancer, Vol.34(4), pp.1-9
- Publisher
- Springer
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.1007/s00520-026-10608-y
- ISSN
- 1433-7339
- PMID
- 41915075
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- The data that support the findings of this study are available from the data custodians of each of the linked datasets. Aggregated data used for this manuscript is available from the authors upon reasonable request.
- Grant note
- This work was supported by Townsville Hospital and Health Service Study, Education and Research Trust Account (SERTA) grant (2021_16).
- Organisation Unit
- School of Health; Cancer Research Cluster; School of Health - Public Health
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991228953302621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
1 Record Views