Abstract
Malignant melanoma accounts for the vast majority of skin cancer deaths. Primary prevention is used to increase knowledge about skin cancer and set incentives for a change in behaviour, which leads to a decrease in cases. Primary prevention may be cost‐effective or even cost saving. Cost‐of‐illness studies provide information on such potential savings.
The purpose of this study is to give an overview on cost‐of‐illness studies in European countries and to compare the cost‐of‐illness in total and by cost categories. The results can be used to model potential cost savings from prevention.
We conducted a systematic literature research in PubMed using the PRISMA checklist. All costs were converted into Euro and adjusted for the reference year 2012. For the ranking of countries according to their cost‐of‐illness, all costs were adjusted for the purchasing power parity.
Studies focusing on stage III–IV melanoma all include information on hospital, hospice, and outpatient treatment. Costs for the treatment of advanced melanoma range between € 2,972 in Italy and € 17,408 in Sweden after adjusting for PPP.
Most studies on stage I–IV melanoma include costs of hospitalisation, outpatient treatment and GP consultation. Direct costs range from € 923 in Sweden to € 9,829 in Denmark. Three articles also include information on indirect costs. Mortality costs vary between € 3,511 in Sweden and € 20,408 in England, morbidity costs between € 103 in Sweden and € 4,550 in England.
We showed that costs for the treatment of skin cancer are moderately high in the included countries. Since after publication of the articles new costly drugs were approved in Europe, treatment costs of melanoma in Europe may be expected to have risen in the last few years, which means that there is a high expectable potential for prevention programmes to become cost‐effective or even cost saving.
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