European journal of cancer care
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Eur J Cancer Care (Engl) · Mar 2006
Palliative care treatment patterns and associated costs of healthcare resource use for specific advanced cancer patients in the UK.
The purpose of this paper is to identify the treatment patterns and corresponding costs of healthcare resource use associated with palliative care for different types of advanced cancer patients, from the time they started strong opioid treatment until death. This was a modelling study performed from the perspective of the UK's National Health Service (NHS). A data set was created comprising 547 patients in the DIN-Link database who had a Read code for malignant neoplasms with a specific tumour-type diagnosis and who received their first strong opioid between 1 January 1998 and 30 September 2000 and died during that period. ⋯ The total cost of palliative care varied between cancer type and reflects, at least in part, the distinct clinical features associated with different tumours and the varying lengths of survival following the start of strong opioid treatment. Nevertheless, no apparent relationship was found between length of palliative care and corresponding costs. This analysis provides data on palliative care resource use for a variety of cancers and could provide useful input when planning local healthcare strategies and building service commissioning models.