Cost of Cancer treatment can leave your finances in mess.

A million new cases of cancer are reported every year in India. The number of cases is rising every year as a result of lifestyle changes, and increased risk factors like tobacco use, drinking and air pollution. Most common cancers in India are oral, breast, cervical, lungs, and colon cancer.

Millions of our countrymen are grappling with high cost of cancer treatment that are wiping out entire life savings and in many cases forcing people to borrow. The high cost of cancer treatment are a result of high cost of treatment equipment and drugs. Basic Radiation therapy equipment costs around Rs. 10 crore, a PET CT scan machine can cost anywhere from 4-6 crores and a CyberKnife used for radiotherapy which costs around Rs 30 crore. Add all this up and cost of setting up a 100 bed cancer hospital can run up to Rs 100 crores. Hospitals recover these costs from patients. Then there is the cost of drugs and treatment. Cancer drugs don’t come cheap. Targeted cancer treatment drugs are prohibitively expensive.

Type of Cancer	Targeted Drugs	Treatment cost
Breast Cancer	Herceptin	Rs. 75000 per course. Up to 15 course may be needed.
Colon, kidney, lung and gall bladder cancer	Avastin	Rs 80,000 to 1 Lakh per cycle. Patients may need upto 7 cycles
Colon and Rectal Cancer	Erbitux	Rs 1 Lakh per cycle. Patients may need upto 7 cycles
All Types of Cancer	Chemotherapy	Each session from Rs 10000 – 90,000. May need about 4 sessions

If the cancer is in advanced stages then costs will be much higher. Specialty cancer hospitals are very few and in addition to treatment costs, the patients and their often have to come from outside town to avail of the treatment. The costs of transportation, food and lodging can easily add another 50% to these costs. It is no surprise that 25% of all patients give up these treatment midway.

Most of the government schemes don’t cover cancer treatment and the general medical insurance policy wouldn’t be enough to cover all the costs. One option to cover for these kind of illnesses is a critical illness policy. A typical critical illness policy for 10L for a 40 year old would cost Rs 6000-8000 per year. A 20 L policy would cost about 12000-15000 per year.

Less than 10% of the people in the country have medical health insurance and still fewer have critical illness polices. These policies will pay a lumpsum equal to sum insured if the insured survives 30-90 days after detection of the cancer. It is well worth protection yourselves by buying one of these policies and avoiding financial ruin. Hope that you never have to use one but it is a great protection if ever you need it.