Cancer treatment in US costs more than in Europe but has better outcomes, study says

Cancer treatment in the United States is more expensive than in other developed countries but achieves better outcomes, a new study has shown.

The study looked at survival after cancer diagnosis in the US and 10 European Union countries and “looked at the value of any additional gains [in life expectancy] that might have occurred because of extra spending,” said a coauthor, Dana Goldman, an economist and public policy analyst at the University of California.

Although cancer survival rose in both regions between 1983 and 1999, the gap between them widened over that period: survival in the US was two years longer than in the EU countries at the start of the period (nine years in the US versus …