OnCo
termsTerm

Financial toxicity

The harm caused to patients by the cost of cancer care: depleted savings, debt, skipped medication and worse survival. Measured like any other side effect and, increasingly, treated like one.

Coined by Zafar and Abernethy (2013). Components: material hardship (out-of-pocket costs, income loss), psychological distress and coping behaviours (non-adherence, skipping visits). Prevalence 30-50% of US patients; associated with lower quality of life, treatment non-adherence and higher mortality (bankruptcy linked to 79% higher mortality). Measured by the COST-FACIT instrument. Drivers include drug prices, cost-sharing designs, oral-parenteral parity gaps, travel, and employment loss; higher among younger, minority, low-income and rural patients. Financial navigation, assistance programmes, cost conversations and policy (out-of-pocket caps, Medicaid expansion) reduce it.

clinical: what this kind of term is about · animated schematic, not to scale
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