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Cancer treatment in the USA: a financially toxic cocktail

Beyond the suffering caused by the disease, most patients diagnosed with cancer in the USA face substantial financial hardships associated with their treatments. What underlies the financial toxicity of cancer?

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Correspondence to Karl Gruber.

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Gruber, K. Cancer treatment in the USA: a financially toxic cocktail. Nat Cancer 1, 1136–1139 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-020-00157-6

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