This paper by UK academics and asbestos patient advocates provides a rare example of costing an occupational cancer with regard to acute hospital care using registrar-general data and day book costs for pharmacological and surgical interventions. It does not consider primary or wider care costs or losses to the economy. The paper argues that consideration of occupational cancer costs is needed to assess public health impacts. It notes: “Figures for primary care costs, including caregiver costs, are incomplete or unknown. These disease costs are substantial and have some international generalisability. Treatment patterns and costs vary greatly. Many lung cancer cases due to asbestos exposure occur globally for each mesothelioma case. Hence figures provided in this article are certain to be gross underestimates of the total health service and personal economic costs of asbestos illness and treatment in Scotland.”

Andrew Watterson, Tommy Gorman, Cari Malcolm, Mavis Robinson, and Matthias Beck. The economic costs of health service treatments for asbestos-related mesothelioma deaths, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, volume 1076, pages 871-881, 2006.