For cancer patients, new tool predicts financial pain

Along with the distress that comes with a cancer diagnosis and the discomforts of treatment, more patients now have to deal with "financial toxicity," the expense, anxiety and loss of confidence confronting those who face large, unpredictable costs, often compounded by decreased ability to work. In Cancer, a team of University of Chicago cancer specialists describe the first tool — 11 questions, assembled and refined from conversations with more than 150 patients with advanced cancer — to measure a patient's risk for, and ability to tolerate, financial stress. The researchers named their patient-reported outcome measure COST (COmprehensive Score for financial Toxicity). Read more here.