Economical Breast Cancer Diagnosis in Patients

Sibel Alper^*
*Correspondence: Sibel Alper, Department of Dermatology, Istanbul Bilim University, Turkey, Email:

Introduction

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers in women, and it has a profound impact on their physical, mental, and social well-being. This study assesses the social and economic costs of breast cancer treatment techniques in Bulgaria's North East. Given the rising number of women diagnosed with breast cancer, identifying factors that influence the time of diagnosis is critical for optimising therapeutic care and cost. This aims to see how the economic crisis affects the time of a breast cancer diagnosis. This retrospective observational study looked at a group of 4929 patients diagnosed with breast cancer in Romania's Western region over the period of 19 years. The time period was separated into three groups depending on the commencement of the economic crisis: pre-crisis (2001-2006), crisis (2007-2012), and post-crisis (2013-2016). (2013-2019) [1].

Description

The disease stage at the time of diagnosis was classified as early (stages 0, I, II) or advanced (stages 3, 4, and 5). (stages III, IV). Despite the fact that the mean number of patients diagnosed per year during the preand crisis periods was similar, a significantly higher percentage of patients were diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer during the economic crisis period (46.9% vs. 56.3 percent, p 0.01) than during the previous interval. When environmental factors were taken into account, the discrepancy was even more pronounced, with 65.2 percent of patients from rural areas being diagnosed with advanced disease during the crisis period. In the post-crisis period, there was a 12 percent improvement in early-stage breast cancer diagnosis (55.7 percent, p 0.001). The findings of this study support the notion that economic instability can cause a delay in breast cancer diagnosis, and they emphasise the need for the development of specific strategies aimed at reducing cancer healthcare costs and associated financial burdens during times of economic uncertainty. Breast cancer sufferers in the United States face a high financial burden when compared to individuals with other malignancies. The financial burden of cancer is worsened by treatment side effects. From the views of health care professionals, oncology navigators, and other subjectmatter experts, strategies to relieve the economic burden imposed by breast cancer and its unfavourable treatment effects have emerged. Patient-driven recommendations were collected for the current study to reduce economic burden following 1) breast cancer and 2) breast cancer-related lymphedema, which is a prevalent, long-term side effect of breast cancer.

Qualitative interviews were done with 40 long-term breast cancer survivors who were recruited in a 6-month observational research and lived in Pennsylvania or New Jersey in 2015. Purposive sampling guaranteed that people of all ages, socioeconomic statuses, and lymphedema diagnoses were represented equally. Economic issues, supports employed, and patient recommendations for lowering financial challenges were all discussed in semi structured interviews. To highlight crucial findings, interviews were coded, and representative statements from patient recommendations were evaluated and published. Treatment options for breast cancer surgery are expanding as surgical procedures improve, bringing more scrutiny of health outcomes and healthcare costs. Patients are also getting more involved in their own medical care and want significant data to better understand expected outcomes. There is a rising emphasis on evidence-based practise as a result of these changes and advancements. In this paper, we look at scientific concerns, difficulties, and prospects for enhancing breast cancer surgery outcome measurement [2-5].

Conclusion

This article sends out two main messages. For starters, until recently, there were no thoroughly developed specialised patient-reported outcome (PRO) metrics for breast cancer surgery patients. However, with the recent introduction of new PRO measures such as the BREAST-Q, there is now a good chance of collecting useful outcome data on patient satisfaction and health-related quality of life, as well as better understanding the relative impact of various surgical procedures, decision-making, and clinical practise on patient outcome. As a result, PRO research based on carefully defined breast cancer surgery-specific measurements is still in its early stages, but it is steadily developing. Second, there is a critical need for particular health economic measures to be established for use in breast cancer surgery research, but none have been developed. In fact, research into the economic evaluation of breast cancer surgery has gotten less attention than PRO measure creation, but there's a lot of room to grow in this area of breast cancer surgery research. More research is needed to understand the role that general preference and utility measurements could play, as well as how to appropriately combine data on health-related quality of life and economic metrics, and the possible usage of novel disease-specific tools.

References

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