LAUSR

11Background: Childhood cancer presents unique issues regarding treatment, late effects, and long-term survival, but few studies have reported costs. Childhood cancer-specific costs are useful for economic evaluation and planning care. This study estimates total and cancer-attributable (net) medical costs for a population-based childhood cancer cohort in British Columbia, Canada, by phase of care. Methods: Patients diagnosed with cancer at ages 91 days to 14 years between 1995-2009 were identified from the British Columbia Cancer Registry, and followed to December 31, 2010. Data were linked with clinical and provincial administrative healthcare databases covering all medically-necessary costs. Total resource-specific costs (Canadian $ 2012) were estimated overall and for patients with leukemia, lymphoma, central nervous system (CNS), and “other” cancers. Net costs were calculated by subtracting healthcare costs for propensity-score-matched provincial samples of children without cancer from cancer patient ...