Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the world, affecting more and more people every year. In Slovenia, according to the Cancer Registry of the Republic of Slovenia, 14,987 people fell ill with this disease in 2017, and 6,365 people died as a result of cancer. For 2020, it is estimated that the number of people suffering from cancer will be around 15,800. As a result, the cost of cancer treatment also increases with each passing year. The purpose of the master's thesis is to economically evaluate the consumption and costs of medicinal products for the treatment of cancer in Slovenia between 2014 and 2018.
Data on the consumption of individual medicines were obtained from the list of expensive hospital medicines (list B *), the list of ampoules and other medicines for outpatient treatment within separately charged material - LZM (list A) and publicly available data on dispensed medicines / foods for special medical purposes on prescription at the expense of health insurance, available on the ZZZS website (list of outpatient medicines). Based on the anatomical - therapeutic - chemical (ATC) classification and therapeutic indications, only oncological medicine were selected for analysis. Then, based on data on the total value of expenditures with VAT, the total value of expeditures for prescriptions and the number of boxes of medicine, we estimated the consumption of cancer medicine in Slovenia in the period from 2014 to 2018. For analyzing the data, we used the SPSS Statistic program and Microsoft Excel.
We found that 141 different medicinal products with 104 different active substances were used in the analyzed period. The number of new medicines and active substances is increasing every year. Their consumption is also increasing. From 2014 to 2018, the number of boxes of all selected cancer medicines used, increased by less than 15%, and the total value of expeditures of these medicines by more than 50%. The largest share, according to the number of used boxes, represent medicines with active substances from the groups of antiestrogens (22%) and aromatase inhibitors (21%). The largest share, of the total value of expeditures, represent medicines with active substances from the group of monoclonal antibodies (35%) and group of protein kinases ( 28%). While the consumption of cheaper classical chemotherapeutics decreased, the consumption of more expensive target and immunooncological medicines increased in the analyzed period.
As in the last ten years the development of oncology medicines is increasingly focused on the targeted treatment of cancer, and within this, the development and use of immunooncology medicines, we looked at how many and which immunooncology medicines and active substances were used in Slovenia between 2014 and 2018. And evaluate what the expenditures were and what was the quantitative consumption of these medicines in the analyzed period.
We found that 20 immunooncological medicines with 23 active substances were used. Originator medicines (20 medicines) predominated, but also 3 similar biological medicines were already used. Their consumption fluctuated throughout the analyzed period. From 2014 to 2016, it decreased (both the number of used boxes of medicines and the total value of expeditures by 8%), and from 2016 to 2018 it increased again (the number of used boxes of medicines by 31% and the total value of expeditures by 54%), which is mainly due to the use of new immunooncological medicines. Most immunooncological medicines used in Slovenia in the analyzed period belong to the group of monoclonal antibodies.
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