Direct economic burden of 0.9 million hospitalized cancer patients in Shenzhen, China, 2016–2022

Cancer is a prevailing cause of mortality worldwide, imposing an immense economic burden on both individual patients and society at large. Existing studies tend to focus more on the disease burden rather than the economic burden of cancer, failing to fully understand the crucial financial impact on cancer patients. Using the data from Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in all hospitals in Shenzhen, we analyzed the direct costs of inpatients with cancer in Shenzhen. The database included 10,540,120 inpatient records during 2016–2022. Furthermore, cancer-related inpatient records were extracted using International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze demographic variables, the trends of cost-related information during hospitalization, and hospitalization information including length of stay (LOS), number of hospitalized patients, and hospital visits. Additionally, we categorized the hospitalization records into 25 subgroups based on the types of cancer to conduct a more detailed analysis of each subgroup. During 2016 to 2022, 10,540,120 hospitalization records were observed (43.8% were male), of which 886,868 were records of hospitalized cancer patients (46.7% were male). The admissions of cancer patients grew at an average annual rate of 40.74%, while the proportion of total admissions increased from 2.56% in 2016 to 12.97% in 2022. Total hospitalization costs per visit decreased from $4,151.8 in 2016 to $2,925.6 in 2022, out-of-pocket expenses per visit decreased from $1,630.1 in 2016 to $1,086.1 in 2022, all cost estimates were adjusted to constant 2022 US dollars using the Consumer Price Index (CPI). In the analysis of cancer sub-types, lung cancer, liver cancer and stomach cancer were the three cancers with the highest total costs. The direct medical costs of cancer in Shenzhen presented a trend of increasing inpatient visits and fluctuating medical expenditures, with notable variations by cancer types, patient demographics, and comorbidities. This study highlighted the need for targeted interventions to manage the economic burden on patients and healthcare systems.