Cancer’s Financial Cost Can Be Almost as Toxic to Patients as the Disease Itself

Add a new entry to the list of factors that can exacerbate a cancer diagnosis: money. Paying for cancer treatment is expensive, and for many patients, the financial distress can be severe—so much so that, as recent evidence suggests, it could count as another cancer mortality risk factor, alongside smoking, diet, and exercise. So researchers began calling this distress “financial toxicity,” because of how it influences patients’ well-being, their treatment decisions, and health outcomes.

Yet video-recorded clinical interactions show oncologists and patients broaching the subject of led by Hamel, analyzing those communications, she wrote, “As the cost of cancer care escalates and the burden of cost shifts to the patient, more patients are incurring debt, filing for bankruptcy, and forgoing treatment.” The study, published in the , looked specifically at African-American patients, many of whom lived in poverty and lacked the time and education needed to have such frank conversations with their oncology team.