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Estimation of benefit of prevention of occupational cancer for comparative risk assessment: methods and examples
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 05/25/2012
Lee LJS et al. – The burden of these occupational cancers, in terms of expected years of life lost (EYLL) and lifetime healthcare expenditures, was substantial. Such estimates may provide useful empirical evidence for comparative risk assessment that can be applied in health policy–making and clinical decision–making.
Methods- The authors retrieved data from the Taiwan Cancer Registry and linked them with the National Mortality Registry to estimate the survival functions for major occupational cancers: lung, pleural mesothelioma, urinary bladder and leukaemia.
- Assuming a constant excess hazard for each type of cancer, the authors extrapolated lifetime survival functions by the Monte Carlo method.
- For each patient with cancer, the authors simulated an age- and gender-matched person without cancer based on vital statistics of Taiwan to estimate life expectancy and expected years of life lost (EYLL).
- By using the reimbursement data from the National Health Insurance Research Database, the authors calculated the average monthly healthcare expenditures, which were summed to estimate the lifetime healthcare expenditures after adjusting for the corresponding monthly survival probability.
- A total of 51408, 136, 12891 and 5285 new cases of lung, pleural mesothelioma, bladder and leukaemia cancers, respectively, were identified during 1997–2005 and followed until the end of 2007.
- The EYLL was predicted to be 13.7±0.1, 18.9±0.7, 4.7±0.3 and 19.4±0.5 years for these cancers, respectively, and the lifetime healthcare expenditures with a 3% annual discount were predicted to be US$22359, US$14900, US$51987 and US$59741, respectively.