The National Health Insurance (NHI) Administration yesterday said medical expenses to treat cancer covered by the program last year totaled approximately NT$75 billion (US$2.37 billion), including targeted cancer therapies that accounted for about NT$12.29 billion, a new record high.
Cancer continues to top the list of the causes of death in Taiwan, with approximately 639,000 people receiving treatment for cancer last year, the agency said, adding that the cost of such treatment was about 13 percent of the program’s entire budget, at an average of NT$110,000 per patient.
Agency statistics showed that NHI expenses to treat cancer have risen from about NT$60 billion in 2011 to NT$75 billion last year, an increase of 25 percent.
Huang Jau-jie (黃兆杰), a section chief at the administration, said the NHI program’s expenses on medicines for cancer treatment increased by an annual average of 10.4 percent over the past five years.
An analysis of the types of medicines used to treat cancer showed that targeted therapy accounted for about 54.7 percent of total expenses, chemotherapy about 35.6 percent and hormonal drugs about 7.7 percent, with other types of drugs constituting the remaining 2 percent, he said.
A further breakdown of the data found that among targeted therapies, breast cancer treatment ranked No. 1 at about NT$2.1 billion, followed by leukemia at about NT$1.7 billion, and liver and kidney cancer at about NT$1.2 billion each, he said.
As new medical technology advances become available and new types of cancer drugs are developed, the use of targeted cancer treatment drugs is increasing, Huang said, adding that the administration looks forward to seeing more local pharmaceutical firms develop targeted therapy drugs to provide cancer patients with more choices and help reduce the economic burden on the NHI program.
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