A new tool will help to gauge a cancer patient's ability to handle "financial toxicity," which is the anxiety and loss of confidence associated with the financial burden the disease creates.

The tool, called the Comprehensive Score for Financial Toxicity, consists of 11 questions taken from trials encompassing over 150 cancer patients, a University of Chicago Medical Center news release reported. The trial's patients helped researchers whittle down the list of about 147 questions to those most important.

"Few physicians discuss this increasingly significant side effect with their patients," study author Jonas de Souza, MD, a head-and-neck cancer specialist at the University of Chicago Medicine, said in the news release. "Physicians aren't trained to do this. It makes them, as well as patients, feel uncomfortable," he said. "We aren't good at it. We believe that a thoughtful, concise tool that could help predict a patient's risk for financial toxicity might open the lines of communication. This gives us a way to launch that discussion."

The cost of cancer care is rising even faster than the cost of healthcare, and the cost of cancer drugs is rising faster than the care itself. Cancer costs often last longer than the disease, and 30 percent of cancer patients cannot return to work or demonstrate a decreased ability to return to work.

The 11 question test is short and easy. Patients are asked to respond to the series of simple statements. Examples of COST statements include: "My out-of-pocket medical expenses are more than I thought they would be," and "I am able to meet my monthly expenses. For each question, patients choose from five potential responses: not at all, a little bit, somewhat, quite a bit, or very much."

"We need better ways to find out which patients are most at risk," de Souza said. "Then we can help them get financial assistance. If patients know what to expect, they may want their physicians to consider less costly medications," Souza said.

"We need to assess outcomes that are important for patients," he said. "At the end, this is another important piece of information in the shared-decision-making process."