Chongqing University Cancer Hospital Reports Findings in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (Association of public health insurance with cancer-specific mortality risk among patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a prospective cohort study in China): Oncology – Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

2023 JUN 30 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Oncology - Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma is the subject of a report. According to news reporting originating in Chongqing, People’s Republic of China, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Health insurance programs are effective in preventing financial hardship in patients with cancer. However, not much is known about how health insurance policies, especially in Southwest China with a high incidence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), influence patients’ prognosis.”

Financial support for this research came from National Natural Science Foundation of China.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Chongqing University Cancer Hospital, “Here, we investigated the association of NPC-specific mortality with health insurance types and self-paying rate, and the joint effect of insurance types and self-paying rate. This prospective cohort study was conducted at a regional medical center for cancer in Southwest China and included 1,635 patients with pathologically confirmed NPC from 2017 to 2019. All patients were followed up until May 31, 2022. We determine the cumulative hazard ratio of all-cause and NPC-specific mortality in the groups of various insurance kinds and the self-paying rate using Cox proportional hazard. During a median follow-up period of 3.7 years, 249 deaths were recorded, of which 195 deaths were due to NPC. Higher self-paying rate were associated with a 46.6% reduced risk of NPC-specific mortality compared to patients with insufficient self-paying rate (HR: 0.534, 95% CI: 0.339-0.839, = 0.007). For patients covered by Urban and Rural Residents Basic Medical Insurance (URRMBI), and for patients covered by Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance, each 10% increase in the self-paying rate reduced the probability of NPC-specific death by 28.3 and 25%, respectively (UEBMI).”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Results of this study showed that, despite China’s medical security administration improved health insurance coverage, NPC patients need to afford the high out-of-pocket medical costs in order to prolong their survival time.”

For more information on this research see: Association of public health insurance with cancer-specific mortality risk among patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a prospective cohort study in China. Frontiers in Public Health, 2023;11:1020828. Frontiers in Public Health can be contacted at: Frontiers Media Sa, Avenue Du Tribunal Federal 34, Lausanne, Ch-1015, Switzerland.

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Hai-Ke Lei, Chongqing Cancer Multi-omics Big Data Application Engineering Research Center, Chongqing University Cancer Hospital, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China. Additional authors for this research include Dan Li, Xiao-Lei Shu, Xin Zhang, Hong-Lei Tu, Feng Wang, Yu-Wei Wang, Ying Wang and Jiang-Dong Sui.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1020828. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

The publisher of the journal Frontiers in Public Health can be contacted at: Frontiers Media Sa, Avenue Du Tribunal Federal 34, Lausanne, Ch-1015, Switzerland.

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