Measuring current and future cost of skin cancer in England

Increasing incidence of and mortality from skin cancer are posing a large financial burden on the NHS in England. Information provided by cost-of-illness (CoI) studies are used in policy making and are particularly useful for measuring the potential savings from averting a case of disease. We estimate the cost of skin cancer in England, and model future costs up to 2020. We compare two costing approaches (top-down and bottom-up). We estimate that costs due to skin cancer were in the range of 106112 million in 2008. These figures are very closely related to those provided by the Department of Health (estimated to be 104.0 million in 20078 and 105.2 million 20089). The expected cost per case of malignant melanoma was estimated to be 2607 and 2560, using the bottom-up and top-down approaches, respectively. The mean cost per case of non-melanoma skin cancer was 889 and 1226, respectively. We estimate that the cost to the NHS due to skin cancer will amount to over 180 million in 2020. Effective prevention of skin cancer might not only reduce a significant burden of disease but it could also save considerable resources to the NHS.