Quality of life, out-of-pocket expenditures, and indirect costs among patients with the central nervous system tumors in Thailand.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures, indirect costs, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) associated with the central nervous system (CNS) tumors in Thailand. Materials and Methods: A prospective study of CNS tumor patients who underwent first tumor resection at a tertiary care institution in Thailand was conducted. Patients were interviewed during hospitalization for undergoing first surgery. Within 6 months, they were interviewed once more if the disease continued to progress. Costs collected from a patient perspective and converted to 2019 US dollars. For dealing with these skewed data, a generalized linear model was used to investigate the effects of disease severity (malignancy, progressive disease, Karnofsky performance status score, and histology) and other factors on costs (OOP, informal care, productivity loss, and total costs). Results: Among a total of 123 intracranial CNS tumor patients, there were 83 and 40 patients classified into benign and malignant, respectively. In the first brain surgery, there was no statistical difference in HRQoL between patients with benign and malignant tumors ( Conclusion: Although there was no statistical difference in HRQoL and costs between patients with benign and malignant tumor, the total costs accounted for more than half of the reported income in malignant tumor patients. The primary cause of significant increases in all costs categories was disease progression.