Published 28 August 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3499
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3499

News

Billions of dollars needed to close global spending gap on cancer care

Karen McColl

1 Dublin

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

An annual investment of $217bn (£134bn; {euro}152bn) is needed to meet the shortfall in global spending on cancer care and treatment, says a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The report, which was commissioned by the Lance Armstrong Foundation, calculates that of the estimated 12.9 million new cancer cases in 2009, almost two thirds (61%) will occur in low or middle income countries. Yet only 5% of the resources currently allocated to fighting cancer globally are spent in the developing world.

New cases of cancer will cost $305bn this year alone, based on treatment and care, lost productivity, other non-medical costs, and cancer research ($19bn), says the report.

To arrive at the current funding shortfall, the report defined a "global treatment expenditure standard," derived from spending estimates for the country with the lowest case fatality rate for each type of cancer. Almost 90% of the $217bn needed to bring all . . . [Full text of this article]


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