Four years after being treated for breast cancer, a quarter of survivors say they are worse off financially, at least in part because of their treatment, according to a new study published online March 24 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
The researchers from the University of Michigan found that 12% of the women reported they still have medical debt from their treatment.
Lead author Dr. Reshma Jagsi, PhD, and colleagues surveyed women in Detroit and Los Angeles who had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, based on data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry. The group surveyed women nine months after diagnosis and again four years later, asking whether they believed they were worse off financially since their diagnosis, and whether it had caused long-term challenges. A total of 1,502 women responded to both surveys.
The women's financial straits varied by race, with blacks and English-speaking Latina women more likely to be affected than white women. Other factors that made women more vulnerable to financial hardship after diagnosis included being younger than 65, having a household income of less than $50,000, having only part-time work at diagnosis, breast cancer recurrence, and undergoing chemotherapy, Jagsi and colleagues found.
