Comparing Cancer Care and Economic Outcomes Across Health Systems: Challenges and Opportunities

In September 2010, the National Cancer Institute, University of Roma Tor Vergata, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, and Institute of Research on Population and Social Policies, National Research Council, co-sponsored a meeting "Combining Epidemiology and Economics for Measurement of Cancer Costs" to discuss interdisciplinary approaches for estimation of the burden of cancer and the feasibility of international and health-care system comparative studies of cancer outcomes. That meeting was the basis for initiating this monograph. It contains an overview of key aspects of health-care systems, several systematic reviews of published studies of patterns of care and costs associated with cancer, and a series of comparative papers either between countries or between health systems within a country. The final section begins with an illustration of how simulation modeling can inform cancer care decision making. It concludes with a future directions paper that examines the opportunities and challenges associated with improving the scientific quality and usefulness of comparative studies of the burden of cancer and interventions to reduce it.