title: [Cost of breast cancer treatment by clinical stage in the Basque Country, Spain].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The burden of breast cancer is important for the healthcare system. In the context of the evaluation of the breast cancer screening program in the Basque Country it is important to determine the unitary costs related to diagnosis as well as the treatment costs depending on the clinical stage at detection. The main objective was to calculate the total cost and the components of breast cancer (BC) treatment depending on the clinical stage by 2011.
  
  
  METHODS
  The estimated costs include BC diagnosis as so as to initial treatment and follow-up, based on resource consumption and unitary costs of the Basque Health Services. Micro-costing technique was applied based on the clinical guidelines.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our model showed the estimated loss of productivity due to premature The initial cost was 9.838 for the stage 0, 17.273 for stage I, 22.145 for stage II and 28.776 for stage III. The follow up annual cost was 172 for the stage 0, 908 for stage I, 994 for stage II and 1.166 for stage III. The annual cost for stage IV was 17879.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Chemotherapy determines the greatest percentage of BC costs. The two main drivers of the total cost of breast cancer are the initial treatment of stages I to III and the cost of stage IV, the latter reaching  50,061 per patient.
authors.forename: Arantzazu
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arrospide
authors.forename: Myriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soto-Gordoa
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Acaiturri
authors.forename: Guillermo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: López-Vivanco
authors.forename: Luis Carlos
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Abecia
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mar
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000191:economics / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy / Q000191:economics; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000191:economics*; D005260:Female; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D013030:Spain