One physician believes the "financial toxicity" linked to high-cost cancer treatment should be disclosed to patients like any other medical symptom.
Jonas de Souza, MD, oncologist with the University of Chicago Medical Center, believes financial toxicity is a symptom of cancer care that can cause significant physical and emotional damage.
"Historically physicians have focused on survival — prolonging a patient's life. Over the past 20 years, we began thinking about how the physical side effects of cancer treatment — vomiting, headaches or hair loss — affect a patient's quality of life. Financial toxicity is another important side effect that needs to, at the very least, be disclosed to patients, though it's often taboo for physicians to think about cost, let alone discuss it in the context of care," said Dr. de Souza in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Dr. de Souza believes upon the disclosure and discussion of financial toxicity, there should be an opportunity for treatment adjustment if that is what the patient desires, which is the standard practice for physical side effects.
Dr. de Souza created a questionnaire physicians can use to evaluate the financial stress of cancer patients. He is also constructing a database to further examine financial toxicity.
"Ideally we hope to see if certain treatments cause more distress than others, and if there are similar treatments that are less financially toxic. We are also interested in seeing how cancer patients' toxicity fares over time. When do patients hit rock bottom? When is the best time to intervene? This is likely to be different for different types of cancer," said Dr. de Souza.
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