Cancer patients nearly 5 times more likely to go bankrupt, find researchers

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Cancer patients are nearly five times more likely to experience bankruptcy, as financial fallout can follow patients with cancer and their families in the form of lower credit scores and other forms of monetary challenges years after a cancer diagnosis.

For patients with bladder, liver, lung, and colorectal cancers, the impact on credit scores was larger compared with other types of cancers, said researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston in the US.

"These are the first studies to provide numerical evidence of financial toxicity among cancer survivors. Previous data on this topic largely relies on subjective survey reviews," said Benjamin C James, chief of general surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

The first study included 99,175 people who had a cancer diagnosis from 2010 through 2019 and 188,875 non-cancer patients to serve as a control.

Researchers matched patient registry data with Experian credit bureau data to evaluate objective financial markers of financial toxicity.

Patients with cancer had higher rates in total debt collections, medical collections, and bankruptcies. Cancer patients are nearly 5 times more likely to experience bankruptcy. The cancer patients also had average credit scores nearly 80 points lower.

The second study used a sample of 7,227 patients with colorectal cancer and identified a number of factors that correlated with lower credit scores.

The study also found that declines in credit scores are larger for people with bladder, liver, lung, and colorectal cancers, and persist for up to 9.5 years after diagnosis.

However, Dr James noted that the researchers did not directly correlate cancer prognosis with financial toxicity, but that some more aggressive cancers actually have less financial toxicity than cancers with a good prognosis.

"There are certain factors that are associated with worse financial toxicity, including being under the age of 62, identifying as Black or Hispanic, not being married, having an area deprivation index below the median, not owning a home, and having an income below a median of $52,000 a year," Dr James noted.

The studies followed up on findings from the 2015 North American Thyroid Cancer Survivorship Study, which showed that 50 per cent of thyroid cancer survivors encountered financial toxicity due to their diagnosis.

"Further research is needed, but I think financial security should be a priority in cancer care," said the authors.

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