Assessing the cost effectiveness of adjuvant therapies in early breast cancer using a decision analysis model

Economic evaluations of oral medications for breast cancer treatment in the U.S.: a systematic review with a focus on cost-effectiveness threshold

Introduction: With the advent of targeted therapy, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently approved several oral anticancer medications (OAMs) for breast cancer (BC). Despite the improved effectiveness of those OAMs, the high financial burden is an issue. Evidence from cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) can provide valuable information for decision-makers when deciding whether to use these high-priced medications. Many CEAs on OAMs have been conducted using various analytical approaches and cost-effectiveness thresholds (CETs). However, there is no comprehensive systematic review of CEAs across all OAMs.Area covered: PubMed and Cochrane library were used to select for CEAs of OAM for BC in the U.S. published by May 2019. Among the 25 included studies, studies published between 1993 and 2011 analyzed either early BC (n = 11) or advanced/metastatic BC (n = 5), those between 2012-2019 analyzed advanced/metastatic BC (n = 9). Studies including targeted therapies were published after 2009. The CETs tended to increase over time and were higher in the studies for advanced/metastatic BC (median = $125,000) than those for early BC (median = $50,000).Expert commentary: The target population and medications of interest have changed and the methods of articles have evolved. The range of CETs tends to differ by study setting with an increase over time.

Economic evaluation of chemoprevention of breast cancer with tamoxifen and raloxifene among high-risk women in Japan

Raloxifene was approved for chemoprevention against breast cancer among high-risk women in addition to tamoxifen by the US Food and Drug Administration. This study aims to evaluate cost-effectiveness of these agents under Japan's health system. A cost-effectiveness analysis with Markov model consisting of eight health states such as healthy, invasive breast cancer, and endometrial cancer is carried out. The model incorporated the findings of National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project P-1 and P-2 trial, and key costs obtained from health insurance claim reviews. Favourable results, that is cost saving or cost-effective, are found by both tamoxifen and raloxifene for the introduction of chemoprevention among extremely high-risk women such as having a history of atypical hyperplasia, a history of lobular carcinoma in situ or a 5-year predicted breast cancer risk of ⩾5.01% starting at younger age, whereas unfavourable results, that is ‘cost more and gain less’ or cost-ineffective, are found for women with a 5-year predicted breast cancer risk of ⩽5.00%. Therapeutic policy switch from tamoxifen to raloxifene among postmenopausal women are implied cost-effective. Findings suggest that introduction of chemoprevention targeting extremely high-risk women in Japan can be justifiable as an efficient use of finite health-care resources, possibly contributing to cost containment.

Is Adjuvant Therapy for Older Patients with Node (+) Early Breast Cancercost-effective?*

BACKGROUND

Node (+) breast cancer represents over 40% of cases in older women and currently there is a debate whether adjuvant therapy for all older women is cost-effective.

PURPOSE

To evaluate if adjuvant treatment for early-stage (Stage I-IIIa) node (+) breast cancer with hormone therapy, chemotherapy, or combination therapy is cost-effective in older patients.

DESIGN

A decision-analysis model for 65, 75, and 85 year-old female breast cancer patients using life tables integrated the cost of treatment in dollars and impact in length and quality of life. Both estrogen receptor (ER) (-) and (+) patients were considered. The primary data sources were meta-analysis from the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group and the Red Book Average Wholesale Price for drugs. The cost of treatment in dollars and impact of quality of life was examined. Scenarios were used when treatment benefit was uncertain. The incremental cost-effectiveness of different treatment strategies were then compared and mapped graphically.

RESULTS

Adjuvant therapy is cost-effective in 65 year-old women with early breast cancer. In a 75 year-old ER (+) patient, hormone therapy is cost-effective, $10,965/quality-adjusted life years (QALY), but chemotherapy was more cost-effective, $27,406/QALY, if one assumed it was as efficacious as in a 65 year-old woman. In a 75 year-old ER (-) patient, chemotherapy was cost-effective at $42,605 with the same assumption. In an 85 year-old ER (+) patient, hormone therapy was cost-effective, $26,463/QALY, if efficacy is not age-sensitive, but chemotherapy was not as cost-effective for either ER (+) or ER (-) patients.

CONCLUSION

Treatment decisions for older breast cancer patients suffer from the lack of sufficient clinical trial data. Decision-analytic models can help policy makers who are faced with decisions about whether to support adjuvant therapy in older breast cancer patients and also outline the important parameters that need to be considered in such a decision.

Impact of uncertainty on cost-effectiveness analysis of medical strategies: The case of high-dose chemotherapy for breast cancer patients

Objectives: The object of this study was to determine, taking into account uncertainty on cost and outcome parameters, the cost-effectiveness of high-dose chemotherapy (HDC) compared with conventional chemotherapy for advanced breast cancer patients.

Methods: An analysis was conducted for 300 patients included in a randomized clinical trial designed to evaluate the benefits, in terms of disease-free survival and overall survival, of adding a single course of HDC to a four-cycle conventional-dose chemotherapy for breast cancer patients with axillary lymph node invasion. Costs were estimated from a detailed observation of physical quantities consumed, and the Kaplan–Meier method was used to evaluate mean survival times. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were evaluated successively considering disease-free survival and overall survival outcomes. Handling of uncertainty consisted in construction of confidence intervals for these ratios, using the truncated Fieller method.

Results: The cost per disease-free life year gained was evaluated at 13,074€, a value that seems to be acceptable to society. However, handling uncertainty shows that the upper bound of the confidence interval is around 38,000€, which is nearly three times higher. Moreover, as no difference was demonstrated in overall survival between treatments, cost-effectiveness analysis, that is a cost minimization, indicated that the intensive treatment is a dominated strategy involving an extra cost of 7,400€, for no added benefit.

Conclusions: Adding a single course of HDC led to a clinical benefit in terms of disease-free survival for an additional cost that seems to be acceptable, considering the point estimate of the ratio. However, handling uncertainty indicates a maximum ratio for which conclusions have to be discussed.

Ethical issues in the economic assessment of health care technologies

This paper challenges traditional views which oppose health economics and medical ethics by arguing that economic assessment is a necessary complement to medical ethics and can help to improve public participation and democratic processes in choices about resource allocation for health care technologies. In support of this argument, four points are emphasized: (1) Most current biomedical ethical debates implicitly deal with economic issues of resource allocation. (2) Clinical decisions, which usually respect the Hippocratic code of ethics, are nevertheless influenced by economic incentives and constraints. (3) Economic assessment is concerned with both efficiency and equity and potential trade-offs between the two, which means that ethical judgements are always embedded in welfare economics. (4) The real debate is not between economics on the one side and medical ethics on the other. Rather it is between different ethical conceptions of social justice and the contrasting approaches they entail to reconciling individual interests and preferences with collective goods and welfare.

Aromatase inhibitors--socio-economical issues

Novel, third-generation aromatase inhibitors are currently implemented for treatment of postmenopausal breast cancer in the metastatic and adjuvant setting and, potentially, for breast cancer prevention. Introduction of novel therapeutic strategies to large patient groups may add significant costs to health care budgets, forcing institutions to focus entirely on costs or the cost-utility of implementing such novel strategies. Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer in the female population in western societies, and its incidence is currently increasing in other parts of the world as well. Due to the proven efficacy and limited side effects of endocrine therapy in the adjuvant setting, the indications for use have been successively broadened. Currently, the majority of postmenopausal women treated for an estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer will be offered adjuvant endocrine therapy; thus, a general change of practice may cause significant implications to healthcare costs. This may relate to direct drug costs as well as indirect costs related to prevention of side effects, like additional use of bisphosphonates to prevent enhanced bone loss. The aim of this paper is to overview these considerations and put them into perspective by simple illustrations taken from current cost estimates.

Is adjuvant therapy for older patients with node (−) early breast cancer cost-effective?

BACKGROUND

Node (-) breast cancer represents over 60% of cases in older women and currently there is a debate whether adjuvant therapy for these women is cost-effective.

PURPOSE

Evaluate if adjuvant treatment for early-stage node (-) breast cancer with hormone therapy, chemotherapy, or combination therapy is cost-effective in older patients.

DESIGN

Decision-analysis modeling using life tables integrated the cost of treatment in dollars and impact in length and quality of life. The primary data sources were meta-analysis from the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group and the Red Book Average Wholesale Price for drugs. The incremental cost-effectiveness of different treatment strategies were then compared and mapped graphically.

RESULTS

Adjuvant therapy is cost-effective in 65-year-old women with early breast cancer. In a 75-year-old estrogen receptor, ER (+) patient, hormone therapy, specifically tamoxifen, is cost-effective, 19,530 dollars/QALY. In a 75-year-old ER (-) the use of chemotherapy (AC or CMF) or 85-year-old ER (+) the use of hormone therapy was only marginally cost-effective, 54,000-76,000 dollars/QALY, only if efficacy was assumed to be age-insensitive (similar to a 65-year-old woman).

CONCLUSION

Decision-analytic models can help policy makers who are faced with decisions about whether to support adjuvant therapy in older breast cancer patients and also outline the important parameters that need to be considered in such a decision.

Prevention could be less cost-effective than cure: the case of hepatitis C screening policies in France

OBJECTIVES

To access the cost-effectiveness of French recommendations for hepatitis C virus (HCV) screening and the extent to which earlier identification of carriers may or not improve the cost-effectiveness of therapeutic strategies.

METHODS

Cost-effectiveness analysis were performed using decision-tree analysis and a Markov model. Four alternative strategies were compared: no screening and no treatment; initiation of HCV treatment after the diagnosis of cirrhosis; and two alternative strategies refer to the current French policies of HCV testing, i.e., two enzyme immunoblot assay (EIA) tests in series, or a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis after the first positive EIA test. Costs were computed from the viewpoint of the health care system. The analysis has been applied to populations particularly at risk of infection, as well as the general population.

RESULTS

The "wait and treat cirrhosis" strategy was more cost-effective in the general population and in transfusion recipients. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of this strategy compared with baseline strategy was 3,476 of euros and Euro15,300 in respective cohorts. Considering the HCV screening strategy, the additional cost would be of Euro4,933 and Euro240,250 per additional year of life saved, respectively. In the intravenous drug user (IDU) population, the "two ElA" screening strategy was the more cost-effective alternative, with an additional cost of Euro3,825 per additional year of life saved.

CONCLUSIONS

HCV screening would be discarded for transfusion recipients but should be encouraged for IDUs and also for the general population, in which the additional cost of screening is an order of magnitude more acceptable.

Systematic overview of cost-utility assessments in oncology

PURPOSE

Cost-utility analyses (CUAs) present the value of an intervention as the ratio of its incremental cost divided by its incremental survival benefit, with survival weighted by utilities to produce quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). We critically reviewed the CUA literature and its role in informing clinical oncology practice, research priorities, and policy.

METHODS

The English-language literature was searched between 1975 and1997 for CUAs. Two readers abstracted from each article descriptions of the clinical situation and patients, the methods used, study perspective, the measures of effectiveness, costs included, discounting, and whether sensitivity analyses were performed. The readers then made subjective quality assessments. We also extracted utility values from the reviewed papers, along with information on how and from whom utilities were measured.

RESULTS

Our search yielded 40 studies, which described 263 health states and presented 89 cost-utility ratios. Both the number and quality of studies increased over time. However, many studies are at variance with current standards. Only 20% of studies took a societal perspective, more than a third failed to discount both the costs and QALYs, and utilities were often simply estimates from the investigators or other physicians.

CONCLUSION

The cost-utility literature in oncology is not large but is rapidly expanding. There remains much room for improvement in the methodological rigor with which utilities are measured. Considering quality-of-life effects by incorporating utilities into economic studies is particularly important in oncology, where many therapies obtain modest improvements in response or survival at the expense of nontrivial toxicity.

[Economic analysis versus the principle of guaranteed safety in blood transfusion]

This article shows that policies aimed at reducing risks of infectious agents transmissible through blood unfortunately follow a law of 'diminishing returns': increasing marginal costs have to be devoted for limited reductions in the risks of contamination through blood donations. Therefore, the economic cost-effectiveness analysis is appropriate to identify screening strategies which may minimize costs to reach a certain level of safety. Moreover, economic analysis can contribute to public debates about the level of residual risk that society is willing to accept. Empirical results from French studies about screening for hepatitis C virus (HCV) in individuals who have received blood transfusions and in blood donations are presented to illustrate these points.

Economic evaluation of letrozole in the treatment of advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women in Canada

OBJECTIVE

To determine the cost-effectiveness of initiation of second-line hormone therapy with letrozole in the treatment of advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women in Canada, compared to megestrol acetate.

METHODS

A modified Markov model, incorporating seven health states, was designed to simulate the treatment of patients with advanced breast cancer from second-line hormone therapy to death. The model was constructed with data from a clinical trial, literature sources, and interviews with breast cancer treatment experts. Canadian experts provided information on resource utilization patterns and local costs were attached to these resources. The model was used to calculate mean survival time, time without progression, and total direct medical costs for patients initiating treatment with letrozole 2.5 mg or megestrol acetate 160 mg.

RESULTS

The mean survival time and time without progression for letrozole 2.5 mg patients were 28.3 months and 19.0 months, respectively, compared to 25.7 months and 16.5 months for megestrol acetate 160 mg patients. Total treatment costs for both groups were similar with the letrozole 2.5 mg group costing dollar 20,068 per patient, dollar 1061 more than the megestrol acetate 160 mg group (dollar CAN, 1996). The cost-effectiveness ratio for letrozole 2.5 mg with respect to megestrol was dollar 5051 per year of life gained. Sensitivity analysis showed that this ratio was sensitive to variations in the probabilities governing disease progression.

CONCLUSIONS

Advanced breast cancer patients initiating second-line hormone therapy with letrozole 2.5 mg have better clinical outcomes than patients receiving megestrol acetate 160 mg. Furthermore, this benefit comes at an acceptable cost to the Canadian health care system.

Analysis of the eligibility of published economic evaluations for transfer to a given health care system. Methodological approach and application to the French health care system

CONTEXT

Economic evaluations are costly and cannot always be carried out locally. Therefore, decision-makers may wish to use studies already performed in other settings.

OBJECTIVE

To define a method for assessing the eligibility of published economic evaluations for transfer to a given health care system and apply it to the french health care system in the clinical situation of adjuvant therapy for women with breast cancer.

METHODS

(1) Literature search in six databases from 1982 to 1996; (2) critical appraisal of articles based on four inclusion criteria; and (3) assessment of the eligibility of the studies for transfer based on five indicators.

RESULTS

We identified 26 published economic evaluations concerning adjuvant therapy in women with breast cancer. Six (23%) met all four criteria used to select studies, but none of these studies were eligible for transfer to the french health care system. The main reason was that cost data was not reported in a transparent way.

CONCLUSIONS

To improve the transferability of economic evaluations, we recommend that requirements for data provision in publications be standardized and international collaboration strengthened.

Assessing the cost-effectiveness of postmastectomy radiation therapy

PURPOSE

To assess the cost-effectiveness of postmastectomy local-regional radiation therapy (RT) for patients with breast cancer with regard to local-regional relapse (LRR) and quality-adjusted life years (QALY).

METHODS AND MATERIALS

Data from the literature are used to estimate the risk of LRR, and the impact of RT on the risk of LRR and survival. The risk of LRR is related linearly to the number of positive axillary nodes 1% rate of LRR = 10 + (4 x number of positive nodes)]. RT reduces the risk of LRR by 67%. LRRs are treated with excision or biopsy followed by RT; half being controlled locally and half receiving additional salvage surgery and chemotherapy. Absolute improvements in 10-year overall survival due to RT are assumed to vary between 1 and 12%; and accrue linearly during the initial 10-year follow-up period. Professional and technical charges are used as a surrogate for costs. Money spent and benefits recognized in future years are discounted to 1997 values using a 3% annual rate. Quality factors are used to adjust for treatment, disease, and toxicity status.

RESULTS

The cost per LRR prevented with the addition of routine postmastectomy RT is highly dependent upon the number of positive axillary nodes and ranges from $100,000-$200,000 for patients with 0-2 nodes, and $25,000-$75,000 for > or = 4 nodes. The cost per QALY gained at 10 years is $10,000-$110,000 for survival benefits > or = 3%.

CONCLUSIONS

The cost per LRR prevented decreases with increasing numbers of positive axillary nodes. There is not a sharp cutoff at the < or = 3 vs. > or = 4 lymph node number, suggesting that using this cutoff for recommending or not recommending RT following mastectomy is not economically logical. The cost per QALY of $10,000-$100,000 compares favorably to that of other accepted medical procedures. Modest changes in the quantitative assumptions do not qualitatively alter the results. Concerns regarding costs should not generally preclude the use of postmastectomy RT.

Selecting a decision model for economic evaluation: a case study and review

The increased use of modelling techniques as a methodological tool in the economic evaluation of health care technologies has, in the main, been limited to two approaches--decision trees and Markov chain models. The former are suited to modelling simple scenarios that occur over a short time period, whilst Markov chain models allow longer time periods to be modelled, in continuous time, where the timing of an event is uncertain. In the context of economic evaluation, a less well developed technique is discrete event simulation, which may allow even greater flexibility. Taking the economic evaluation of adjuvant therapies for breast cancer as an illustrative example, the process of building a decision tree, a Markov chain model, and a discrete event simulation model are described. The potential benefits and problems of each approach are discussed. The suitability of the modelling techniques to economic evaluations of health care programmes in general is then discussed. This section aims to illustrate the areas in which the alternative modelling methods may be most appropriately employed.

Medical Economics and Quality of Life: Analysis of Factors That Influence the Perception of Medical Cost by Post-surgical Breast Cancer Patients

Recently, the importance of achieving a balance in terms of length of life (LL), quality of life (QOL) and medical costs has been emphasized in the evaluation of cancer treatment, and it is also said that the cost should be seen from the viewpoints of both the society and the patient. Few studies, however, have been performed to investigate how the patients bear the cost and the influence of this factor. Therefore, in the present study we examined the perception of medical care cost (PMC) in 83 non-recurrent post-surgical breast cancer patients. The factors that influence the PMC were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analyses using the variables representing QOL, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, types of therapy, and various types of medical cost. First, the results of the relationship between the variables and the PMC revealed that the patients with better QOL, especially those with better social category QOL, tended to have a lower PMC. However, no other variable had any significant associations with the PMC. Second, the results of multiple regression analyses revealed that patients with better QOL, especially those with better social category QOL, in the elderly, and/or those with higher level of education tended to show a lower PMC. In conclusion, the results of the present study suggest that, when we consider evaluating the cost of cancer treatment for postsurgical breast cancer patients, we should take into account the patients' QOL, age, and their level of education.