Estimating the long-term costs of diabetic kidney disease: an economic approach

Healthcare spending in Australia has increased rapidly in recent decades,partly due to the prevalence of lifestyle related illness, as physical inactivityand ageing have become common. Diabetes is a chronic and costly illnessresulting from poor lifestyle choice and ageing. In this study, we estimatethe long-run cumulative costs of a complication of diabetes, diabetickidney disease, using well-known techniques from health economics.We find that spending on treatment for diabetic kidney disease will amountto $9.2 billion over the next 30 years. Most of the cost from thiscomplication comes from the clinical stage of diabetic kidney disease.