Cost of medical care for malignant brain tumors at hospitals in the Japan Clinical Oncology Group brain-tumor study group.

Background: This study aimed to investigate what treatment are selected for malignant brain tumors, particularly glioblastoma (GBM) and primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), in real-world Japan and the costs involved.

Methods: We conducted a questionnaire survey regarding treatment selections for newly diagnosed GBM and PCNSL treated between July 2021 and June 2022 among 47 institutions in the Japan Clinical Oncology Group-Brain Tumor Study Group. We calculated the total cost and cost per month of the initial therapy for newly diagnosed GBM or PCNSL.

Results: The most used regimen (46.8%) for GBM in patients aged ≤74 years was 'Surgery + radiotherapy concomitant with temozolomide'. This regimen's total cost was 7.50 million JPY (Japanese yen). Adding carmustine wafer implantation (used in 15.0%), TTFields (used in 14.1%), and bevacizumab (BEV) (used in 14.5%) to the standard treatment of GBM increased the cost by 1.24 million JPY for initial treatment, and 1.44 and 0.22 million JPY per month, respectively. Regarding PCNSL, 'Surgery (biopsy) + rituximab, methotrexate, procarbazine, and vincristine (R-MPV) therapy' was the most used regimen (42.5%) for patients of all ages. This regimen incurred 1.07 million JPY per month. The three PCNSL regimens based on R-MPV therapy were in ultra-high-cost medical care (exceeding 1 million JPY per month).

Conclusions: Treatment of malignant brain tumors is generally expensive, and cost-ineffective treatments such as BEV are frequently used. We believe that the results of this study can be used to design future economic health studies examining the cost-effectiveness of malignant brain tumors.