iStock/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) — One of the worst things to happen to anyone is finding out that they have cancer.
Adding insult is injury is what researchers term “financial toxicity,” that is, all the stress of worrying about how much of a financial burden a patient and their family will undertake to treat the disease.
Jonas de Souza, head-and-neck cancer specialist at the University of Chicago Department of Medicine, says this is one aspect of contracting cancer that few doctors talk about with patients.
That’s why de Sousa and others at the University of Chicago developed a tool called COST, which stands for Comprehensive Score for financial Toxicity.
In short, COST measures a patient’s ability to deal with all the financial concerns associated with their disease.
With this information at their disposal, according to de Sousa, they can make more informed decisions, particularly when it comes to medications.
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