Cancer cost the EU €126 billion in 2009, the first study to evaluate the cost of the disease in Europe has found.

UK researchers studied the total economic cost of cancer across the EU's 27 countries in 2009. This included the cost of healthcare, the cost of productivity losses due to issues such as people being unable to work and premature death, and the cost of informal care by family and friends.

The study found that €51 billion of the total cost was incurred by health services, while the remaining amount was incurred by families, friends and society as a whole.

Meanwhile, the families and friends of people with cancer were found to have provided some €3 billion worth of hours of unpaid care to their loved ones.

Among the 27 countries, cancer in the UK, Germany, France and Italy accounted for over two-thirds of the total €126 billion costs.

Germany and Luxembourg were found to have spent the most on cancer healthcare per person, while Bulgaria spent the least.

"The main driver of cancer-related healthcare costs is a nation's wealth. In general, wealthier countries tend to spend more on healthcare and subsequently on cancer care.

"Other reasons are varied. Some countries rely heavily on inpatient services to provide cancer care while others resort more to the outpatient services, which are in most cases considerably less costly. Further research is required, however, to better understand the reasons behind the differences identified in our research," commented Dr Ramon Luengo-Fernandez of the University of Oxford.

The researchers also focused on four specific cancers, which contribute to half of all new diagnoses and deaths in the EU - breast, lung, bowel and prostate cancer.

The biggest overall cost was associated with lung cancer, at €18.8 billion. When just healthcare costs were taken into account, these were found to be highest for breast cancer (€6.7 billion), largely as a result of the cost of drugs to treat the disease.

According to Prof Richard Sullivan of King's College London, it is now vital that decision-makers throughout Europe ‘use this information to identify and prioritise key areas'.

"More effective targeting of investment may prevent healthcare systems from reaching breaking point - a real danger given the increasing burden of cancer - and in some countries better allocation of funding could even improve survival rates," he said.

Details of this study are published in the journal, Lancet Oncology.