Multinational assessment of some operational costs of teletherapy.

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Medical Physics
• Health Economics

Background:

• Radiotherapy facility planning in resource-limited settings necessitates understanding economic factors for sustainability.
• Teletherapy delivery involves complex economic considerations impacting accessibility and cost-effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To acquire data on economic factors influencing teletherapy delivery across 11 countries with varying economic statuses.
• To compare the costs associated with cobalt and linear accelerator teletherapy machines.

Main Methods:

• Prospective data collection on productivity, quality assurance (QA), maintenance, and capital costs for cobalt and linear accelerator machines in 2002.
• Detailed logging of machine usage over a two-week period for 11 countries across Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
• Inclusion of capital costs and cobalt source replacement costs in the economic analysis.

Main Results:

• Both linear accelerators and cobalt machines treat over 10,000 fractions annually per machine.
• Median costs per fraction were US$11.02 for linear accelerators versus US$4.87 for cobalt machines (excluding physician costs).
• Quality assurance and maintenance costs for linear accelerators (US$41,000 median) significantly exceeded those for cobalt machines (US$6,000 median).

Conclusions:

• Variations in teletherapy costs per fraction are primarily driven by machine usage and equipment expenses, rather than national economic status.
• A functional equivalent linear accelerator treatment fraction costs approximately 50% more than cobalt therapy.
• This study demonstrates the feasibility of collecting prospective and retrospective economic data for radiotherapy services.