Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37329391›Full record

ArticlePharmacoEconomics2023

Context-Specific Estimation of Future Unrelated Medical Costs and Their Impact on Cost-Effectiveness Analyses.

Noga Epstein, Tzahit Simon-Tuval, Yakir Berchenko

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Article in PharmacoEconomics, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Noga EpsteinDepartment of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
Tzahit Simon-TuvalDepartment of Health Policy and Management, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management and Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O Box 653, 8410501, Beer-Sheva, Israel. simont@bgu.ac.il.ORCID 0000-0003-4518-7828
Yakir BerchenkoDepartment of Industrial Engineering and Management, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesThis study constructed and applied procedures for the estimation of unrelated future medical costs (UFMC) of women with breast cancer in Israel (as a case study) and examined the influence of including UFMC in cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs).

methodsPart I consisted of a retrospective cohort study based on patient-level claims data of both patients with breast cancer and matched controls during 14 years of follow-up. UFMC were estimated as (a) the annual average all-cause healthcare costs of the control subjects, and (b) as predicted values based on a generalized linear model (GLM) adjusted to patients' characteristics. Part II consisted of a CEA performed using a Markov simulation model comparing regimens of chemotherapy with/without trastuzumab, both excluding and including UFMC and for each of the UFMC estimates separately. All costs were adjusted to 2019 prices. Costs and QALYs were discounted at a yearly rate of 3%.

resultsThe average annual healthcare costs in the control group were $2328 (± $5662). The corresponding incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was $53,411/QALY and $55,903/QALY, when UFMC were excluded or included, respectively. Hence, trastuzumab was not considered cost-effective compared with a threshold of willingness-to-pay of $37,000 per QALY, regardless of the inclusion of UFMC. When UFMC were estimated on the basis of the prediction model, the ICERs were $37,968/QALY and $39,033/QALY, when UFMC were excluded or included, respectively. Thus, in this simulation, trastuzumab was not considered cost-effective, independent of the inclusion of UFMC.

conclusionOur case study revealed that the inclusion of UFMC had modest effect on the ICERs, and thus did not alter the conclusion. Thus, we should estimate context-specific UFMC if they are expected to change the ICERs significantly, and transparently report the corresponding assumptions to uphold the integrity and reliability of the economic evaluation.

Indexed as

Breast NeoplasmsModels, EconomicCost-Benefit AnalysisFemaleHumansQuality-Adjusted Life YearsReproducibility of ResultsRetrospective StudiesTrastuzumabTrastuzumab

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.