Cost of pretherapeutic staging of patients with colorectal cancer metastases in a French population.

Background: Little is known about the economic burden of pretherapeutic staging of patients presenting colorectal cancer metastases.

Objective: The aim of this study was to estimate the cost of pretherapeutic staging and identify cost determinants for 132 patients presenting colorectal metastases and living in the north-east of France.

Method: Staging cost was estimated using direct medical costs from the point of view of the French Health Insurance System. Independent factors were identified using a linear regression model, and bootstrap resampling was used to estimate unbiased standard errors and 95% confidence intervals.

Results: The overall mean cost for pretherapeutic staging was estimated to be 1534€ [95% CI: 1250€-1818€]. Staging costs increased significantly with the number of medical procedures performed during the staging, and according to health care patterns (in-patient hospital stay versus out-patient episodes, public versus private care).

Conclusion: These results could now be used to estimate the impact of new imaging techniques on clinical practices and pretherapeutic staging costs.