2591 - Financial Boon or Bust: Analyzing the Use of Crowdfunding for Radiation Therapy in the Treatment of Brain Tumors

Purpose/Objective(s): Diagnosis of a brain tumor comes with a plethora of challenges beyond prognosis - treatment options vary depending on the type, size, and location of the tumor. This means that developing a plan is far from straightforward and may pose significant financial strain on a patient and their families. Often one of the less invasive yet farthest reaching treatments is radiation therapy making it a common tenet of the treatment of brain tumors; however, many patients must turn to platforms such as GoFundMe in order to afford this life-saving treatment. This study was designed to evaluate the use of GoFundMe in treatments involving radiation therapy to treat and/or manage brain tumors.

Materials/Methods: Data from 5,373 GoFundMe pages were identified using search terms corresponding to the 2021 WHO classification of CNS tumors using web scraping tools. Campaigns that did not include radiation therapy as part of treatment, were outside the United States, or were raising money for organizations were excluded. The remaining campaigns were analyzed based on diagnosis, amount of money raised, and total goal and compared to treatments not involving radiation.

Results: Out of the 5,373 campaigns, 4,412 explicitly mentioned radiation and only 2,027 met all the above criteria. Of these, 1,957 (96.6%) mentioned the specific type of tumor being treated, with the most common being astrocytomas (24.4%), gliomas (20.2%), and glioblastomas (13.9%). The remaining 41.5% of cases were composed of craniopharyngiomas, ependymomas, lymphomas, medulloblastomas, and meningiomas. Interestingly, when looking at demographic data, only 41% of patients receiving radiation were female and only 477 (23.5%) were for patients under the age of 18. The vast majority of patients were White (85.4%), followed by Hispanic (7.0%), and Black (4.69%). Interestingly, only 832 cases (41.02%) cases were female; similarly 76.60% of cases were for patients over 18, with only 474 pediatric cases. When looking at all campaigns, the average amount raised was $12,921 with the average goal being $27,991. Those without radiation on average raised $11,054 with a goal of $25,086 in comparison to cases including radiation in the treatment plan where they raised $14,131 with a goal of $30,064.

Conclusion: The above findings contradict common concerns about the cost of including radiation therapy in the treatment of patients with brain tumors, although in both cases patients sought sizable donations in order to obtain lifesaving care. While patients receiving radiation appeared to raise a marginally higher portion of their goal amount, this research overall underscores important gaps in healthcare and the importance of social and financial support within a patient’s treatment. As we can see in the demographic data, brain tumors effect a wide array of patients. Future steps for this data set include further demographic analysis as well as comparison across tumor types in order to further investigate the nuances of developing treatment plans.