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Economic Impact of Harmonizing Medical Practices: Compliance With Clinical Practice Guidelines in the Follow-Up of Breast Cancer in a French Comprehensive Cancer Center

From the Groupe de Recherche Économie de la Santé et Réseaux de soins en CancérologieUnité Mixte de Recherche 5823 du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Régional Léon Bérard, Lyon, France.

Address reprint requests to Marie-Odile Carrère, MD, Groupe de Recherche Économie de la Santé et Réseaux de soins en Cancérologie, Centre Léon Bérard, 28 Rue Laennec, 69008 Lyon, France; email carrere{at}lyon.fnclcc.fr

PURPOSE: The introduction of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and the increasing desire to harmonize clinical practices draw attention to the economic impact of these trends. In 1994, CPGs were introduced in a French Comprehensive Cancer Center (Centre Régional Léon Bérard, Lyon). We evaluated the application of these CPGs in addition to the consequences of harmonizing clinical practices with respect to the distribution of resources by specifically analyzing the posttherapeutic follow-up of patients with localized breast cancer.

METHODS: A before-and-after analysis of the records of patients who received posttherapeutic follow-up for localized breast cancer as of either 1993 or 1995 was performed. Two hundred records were chosen at random, 100 from 1993 and 100 from 1995. Follow-up was continued for as long as possible and CPG compliance was studied for each year of the follow-up periods.

RESULTS: Follow-up that was not CPG-compliant required a significantly greater amount of resources. This difference was due to neither consultations nor mammographies, but was due to other examinations that were systematically performed without any warning signs to justify them. Depending on the follow-up year, noncompliant follow-up cost the Social Security from 2.2 to 3.6 times more than compliant follow-up. A noticeable change in medical practices was observed after the introduction of CPGs in 1994. This was confirmed by a sharp decrease in mean Social Security expenditure per patient of more than one third between 1993 and 1995, regardless of the follow-up year considered.

CONCLUSION: In the follow-up of patients with localized breast cancer, a large decrease in costs has been observed along with the evolution of medical practices toward CPG compliance. This finding is probably generalizable to other settings, but there is nothing that proves that it is applicable to other treatment strategies.

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