Got HIV? Lifetime Cost: $618,900
People with HIV can get 24 extra years of life from modern treatments — at a total cost of about $618,900.
That finding comes from a Cornell/Johns Hopkins/Harvard/Boston University research team that analyzed the costs and benefits of modern HIV treatment.
When first introduced in 1996, a combination of then-new HIV drugs increased life expectancy by four years.
Now there are 24 HIV drugs on the market. The benefits are huge. So are the costs.
"We have been very successful in HIV treatment, extending lives by at least 24 years," Cornell researcher Bruce R. Schackman, Ph.D., tells WebMD. "As with many health care innovations, success is expensive. We have to make sure we have enough funds available so that everyone can get that life extension with the best care available."
Doctors don't usually start HIV treatment right away. That's because it takes time for the AIDS virus to wear down the immune system.
Treatment usually starts when immune cells called CD4 T cells decline to a certain level -- typically 350 cells per microliter of blood.
When treatment does begin, the average monthly cost is about $2,100. The cost of drugs is nearly three-fourths of the lifetime expense.
Unfortunately, one in four people with HIV don't know they're infected. They find out only when their immune system collapses.
The cost of treatment started at this late stage averages $4,700 per month. That's because hospital costs rise to almost half the lifetime expense.
In the last 10 years, the U.S. has tripled its spending on HIV-related medical care. Yet it's falling behind.
Future costs, Schackman and colleagues estimate, will be $12.1 billion per year. Drugs will make up 70 percent of the cost.
"Access to HIV care may become increasingly difficult unless more government funds become available or the cost of HIV care is reduced," Johns Hopkins researcher Richard D. Moore says in a news release.
Of course, the least expensive option would be to prevent the estimated 40,000 new HIV infections that occur each year in the U.S.
"Successful prevention of HIV can prevent a lot of cost," Schackman says. "There is a lot of value to programs that prevent HIV."
Schackman and colleagues report their findings in the November issue of Medical Care.
By Daniel DeNoon
Reviewed by Louise Chang
© 2006 WebMD, LLC.. All Rights Reserved. That finding comes from a Cornell/Johns Hopkins/Harvard/Boston University research team that analyzed the costs and benefits of modern HIV treatment.
When first introduced in 1996, a combination of then-new HIV drugs increased life expectancy by four years.
Now there are 24 HIV drugs on the market. The benefits are huge. So are the costs.
"We have been very successful in HIV treatment, extending lives by at least 24 years," Cornell researcher Bruce R. Schackman, Ph.D., tells WebMD. "As with many health care innovations, success is expensive. We have to make sure we have enough funds available so that everyone can get that life extension with the best care available."
Doctors don't usually start HIV treatment right away. That's because it takes time for the AIDS virus to wear down the immune system.
Treatment usually starts when immune cells called CD4 T cells decline to a certain level -- typically 350 cells per microliter of blood.
When treatment does begin, the average monthly cost is about $2,100. The cost of drugs is nearly three-fourths of the lifetime expense.
Unfortunately, one in four people with HIV don't know they're infected. They find out only when their immune system collapses.
The cost of treatment started at this late stage averages $4,700 per month. That's because hospital costs rise to almost half the lifetime expense.
In the last 10 years, the U.S. has tripled its spending on HIV-related medical care. Yet it's falling behind.
Future costs, Schackman and colleagues estimate, will be $12.1 billion per year. Drugs will make up 70 percent of the cost.
"Access to HIV care may become increasingly difficult unless more government funds become available or the cost of HIV care is reduced," Johns Hopkins researcher Richard D. Moore says in a news release.
Of course, the least expensive option would be to prevent the estimated 40,000 new HIV infections that occur each year in the U.S.
"Successful prevention of HIV can prevent a lot of cost," Schackman says. "There is a lot of value to programs that prevent HIV."
Schackman and colleagues report their findings in the November issue of Medical Care.
SOURCES: Schackman, B. Medical Care, November 2006; vol 44: pp 990-997. News release, Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Bruce R. Schackman, PhD, chief, division of health policy, Weill Cornell Medical College.
By Daniel DeNoon
Reviewed by Louise Chang
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5 Comments Add a Comment
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- This is for "Whatever happened to sanity", although the HIV virus may have been around for a very long time, it's also has had that long to mutate and advance it's virility, vehicle transport and hosts invasion. As a survivor of 24 years of KNOWN HIV infection, and 14 years of AIDS treatment, I know the horror of this disease and live the daily memory of all the friends and good people I've know during my life that have lost and many that are still losing their fight against this disease. So don't totally cast this disease as something that's some ordinary daily type routine, it is real, it is real expensive, and is even worse to have to try to survive it. Sadly, it's also big business and also a big political battle with corporate greed and our (POTUS) =Republican political tool to again further the Rightwing and Evangelical movement to sway social society and further intolerance and mass discrimination. With the current trend, soon HIV will have also invaded all the Pious Deities of our political system, and only then when it%u2019s a fight for life of %u201Ctheir own%u201D sons, daughters, parents and loved-ones, then the real fight and the real push for a cure and treatment that%u2019s affordable will be available. Corporate greed and religious/ Political agendas should NOT be part of the equation, but, for now they more a problem than a solution%u2026
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- What happened to sanity? HIV is a harmless passenger virus amongst the tens of thousands we all inherited at birth and is being exploited by AID$ incorporated draining medicare coffers everywhere to the misery of all those who were suckered into testing for it. AIDS is just a renaming of common diseases with know cures that have existed for centuries
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- Unfortunately researchers and drug companies don't want a cure, they just want to medicate for these conditions. I think society has the knowledge to eradicate the disease, but it would bankrupt many professionals if cancer, aids and other diseases were cured. Lifetime cost stated in this story is a low figure, it only seems to factor the cost of the drug therapy, and forgets doctors visits, etc...
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- Well, research actually suggests safe *** does not in fact cure or slow HIV...
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- What happened to safe ***???????????????
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