Study: Countries that spend more on cancer care reduce mortality more

Cancer mortality rates tend to be lower and improve more in countries that spend more on cancer care, according to a study reported in the April issue of Health Affairs. The study compared changes in cancer mortality and cancer care spending in 16 countries: Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. Measures included mortality in cancers amenable to treatment and excess mortality, corrected for the risk of non-cancer causes of death. “We found that compared to low-spending health systems, high-spending systems had consistently lower cancer mortality in the period 1995-2007,” the authors wrote. “Similarly, we found that the countries that increased spending the most had a 17% decrease in amenable mortality, compared to 8% in the countries with the lowest growth in cancer spending. For excess mortality, the corresponding decreases were 13% and 9%. Additionally, the rate of decrease for the countries with the highest spending growth was faster than the all-country trend.” The U.S. had the highest growth in spending on cancer care over the study period and the highest spending in 2007. It also had among the lowest cancer mortality.