Breast cancer treatments can improve both survival chances and income

Radiation therapy treatment for breast cancer not only improves survival rates but also generates long-term financial benefits, according to a new study from the University of Copenhagen.

Survivors of illness and disease often suffer economic hardship such as reduced employment as they recover from treatment. Increasingly, the health community and policymakers are investigating whether treatments can have nonmedical benefits that reduce these economic costs.

In a new study, a group of economists investigated how radiation therapy, a treatment that uses high energy rays to kill cancer cells, affects Danish breast cancer patients’ risk of dying and their labor market performance.

Breast cancer provides an excellent opportunity to consider the nonmedical benefits of treatment. “It is the most common cancer worldwide. In 2020 alone, more than 2.2 million new cases were detected,” says N. Meltem Daysal, associate professor at the Department of Economics and the Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality at the University of Copenhagen.

“Furthermore, about a third of breast cancer patients are diagnosed between the ages of 25 and 54, which are the prime working ages. Finally, survival rates are high—more than 90% of patients in high-income countries are still alive five years after diagnosis,” she says.

The study, titled “Do Medical Treatments Work for Work? Evidence from Breast Cancer Patients,” is published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

Radiation therapy extends working life

For the study, Daysal and her fellow researchers used registry data on nearly 40,000 Danish women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1990 and 1998. The study took advantage of a change in Danish medical guidelines in 1995 that expanded eligibility for radiation therapy without affecting other treatment allocations.

This change enables researchers to assess the effects of radiation therapy without confounding from other treatments.

The researchers found that radiation therapy reduced the risk of dying within 10 years of diagnosis by approximately 35%.

In addition to improving survival rates, radiation therapy was found to have a number of positive effects on patients’ working lives.

“Women who received radiation therapy were 37% more likely to be working 10 years after diagnosis compared to women who did not receive radiation therapy. And women who received radiation therapy had on average 45% higher income 10 years after diagnosis compared to women who did not receive radiation therapy,” explains Daysal.

Economic benefits must be factored into the equation

The researchers emphasize the broader implications of these findings for health policy and economic planning. “While the primary goal of cancer treatment is to save lives, our research underscores that medical interventions like radiation therapy can also generate substantial economic benefits—even in a country like Denmark, which has universal access to health care and a strong social safety net,” says Daysal.

“With cancer treatment costs rising globally, these findings reinforce the need for policymakers to consider the economic advantages of medical interventions. Our study provides compelling evidence that investments in effective cancer treatments can yield significant long-term societal benefits,” concludes Daysal.