QSkin study tracking 40,388 Queenslanders over 8.5 years has found skin cancer accounts for 2.4% of the nation’s total health expenditure – more than twice as high as national estimates.
Keratinocyte cancer (KC) costs rose 105% and melanoma costs jumped 166% from 2013-14 to 2022-23, according to AIHW data.
The findings were drawn from the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), and Queensland hospital admissions for Queenslanders aged 40-69 years at recruitment in 2011.
MBS and PBS data were collected until December 2020, and hospital data until December 2022, with participants followed for an average of 8.5 years.
Dr David Whiteman, a co-author of the study and a medical epidemiologist at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, told Dermatology Republic he was shocked by the “sheer scale of use of health services”.
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