White paper: Cancer Treatment: Market Trends and Medical Update

This paper from Healix discusses the ground-breaking advances being made in the cancer field, resulting in unprecedented survival rates.

Key findings

• Cancer remains the biggest area of spend in private healthcare and this is set to continue, with one in two born in the UK after 1960 expected to be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetime.
• Employers are more likely than ever to encounter an employee with cancer. Furthermore, the median survival time for all cancer types has increased from one to six years since 1980, supporting the premise that patients with cancer are living longer.
• There have been several breakthroughs in cancer treatment in the past year, including: proton beam therapy; treating patients on the basis of tumour genetics, not location; and adoptive cell immunotherapy.
• These advances come at a significant cost and highlight the need for expert clinical assessment and input to ensure that recommended treatment is appropriate and cost-effective – these treatments also have financial implications for healthcare costs.