Fifty Shades of GyE: Interpreting the Cost-Effectiveness of Proton Beam Therapy for Mediastinal Hodgkin Lymphoma

2022 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-168
Author(s):  
David J. Sher
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo Li ◽  
Yun-Fei Xia ◽  
Yi-Xiang Huang ◽  
Deniz Okat ◽  
Bo Qiu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Proton beam therapy (PBT) is a new-emerging cancer treatment in China. The treatment costs are high and not yet covered by Chinese public medical insurance. The advanced form of PBT, intensity-modulated proton radiation therapy (IMPT), has been confirmed to reduce normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) compared with conventional intensity-modulated photon-radiation therapy (IMRT) in patients with oropharyngeal cancer (OPC). This study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of IMPT versus IMRT for OPC patients in China, aiming at guiding proper use of PBT. Methods: On the basis of published data, a 7-state Markov model was designed for cost-effectiveness analysis, and an evaluation of average level was performed on a base case of 56-year-old under the hypothesis that IMPT could make a 25% NTCP-reduction concerning to long-term symptomatic dysphagia and xerostomia. Model robustness was examined using probabilistic sensitivity analysis, cohort analysis and tornado diagram. One-way sensitivity analyses were performed to identify cost-effective scenarios. IMPT was considered as cost-effective if the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was below the societal willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold (3 times the gross domestic product per capita / quality-adjusted life year (QALY)).Results: Compared with IMRT, IMPT could provide an extra 0.724 QALYs at an additional cost of 34,926.6 US dollars ($), and made an ICER of $48,229.8/ QALY for the base case. At current WTP level of China ($30,828/QALY), cost-effective scenarios of IMPT existed in the following independent conditions: ≥ 57.3% NTCP-reduction (IMPT compared with IMRT) in dysphagia and xerostomia; patient age ≤ 38-year-old; or the cost of IMPT ≤ $37,398.1. The estimated cost-effective population that benefit from using PBT to treat OPC increased remarkably in the past 10 years with the economic growth, and reached to 559.7 million (about 40.0% of the China’s total population) in the year 2020. Conclusions: Currently, using PBT to treat OPC could be cost-effective in considerable proportion of China’s population. Considering the economic growth, the gradual increment of medical insurance coverage, as well as the proton treatment cost reduction along with more proton facility opening in the near future, it is estimated that PBT would benefit more Chinese OPC patients with respect to cost-effectiveness.


2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (24) ◽  
pp. 3603-3608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre Konski ◽  
William Speier ◽  
Alexandra Hanlon ◽  
J. Robert Beck ◽  
Alan Pollack

Purpose New treatments are introduced routinely into clinical practice without rigorous economic analysis. The specific aim of this study was to examine the cost effectiveness of proton beam radiation compared with current state-of-the art therapy in the treatment of patients with prostate cancer. Materials and Methods A Markov model was informed with cost, freedom from biochemical failure (FFBF), and utility data obtained from the literature and from patient interviews to compare the cost effectiveness of 91.8 cobalt gray equivalent (CGE) delivered with proton beam versus 81 CGE delivered with intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). The length of how many years the model was run, patient's age, probability of FFBF after treatment with proton beam therapy and IMRT, utility of patients treated with salvage hormone therapy, and treatment cost were tested in sensitivity analyses. Results Analysis at 15 years resulted in an expected mean cost of proton beam therapy and IMRT of $63,511 and $36,808, and $64,989 and $39,355 for a 70-year-old and 60-year-old man respectively, with quality-adjusted survival of 8.54 and 8.12 and 9.91 and 9.45 quality-adjusted life-years (QALY), respectively. The incremental cost effectiveness ratio was calculated to be $63,578/QALY for a 70-year-old man and $55,726/QALY for a 60-year-old man. Conclusion Even when based on the unproven assumption that protons will permit a 10-Gy escalation of prostate dose compared with IMRT photons, proton beam therapy is not cost effective for most patients with prostate cancer using the commonly accepted standard of $50,000/QALY. Consideration should be given to limiting the number of proton facilities to allow comprehensive evaluation of this modality.


BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guo Li ◽  
Yun-Fei Xia ◽  
Yi-Xiang Huang ◽  
Deniz Okat ◽  
Bo Qiu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Proton beam therapy (PBT) is a new-emerging cancer treatment in China but its treatment costs are high and not yet covered by Chinese public medical insurance. The advanced form of PBT, intensity-modulated proton radiation therapy (IMPT), has been confirmed to reduce normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) as compared to conventional intensity-modulated photon-radiation therapy (IMRT) in patients with oropharyngeal cancer (OPC). Herein, we evaluated the cost-effectiveness and applicability of IMPT versus IMRT for OPC patients in China, aiming at guiding the proper use of PBT. Methods A 7-state Markov model was designed for analysis. Base-case evaluation was performed on a 56-year-old (median age of OPC in China) patient under the assumption that IMPT could provide a 25% NTCP-reduction in long-term symptomatic dysphagia and xerostomia. Model robustness was examined using probabilistic sensitivity analysis, cohort analysis, and tornado diagram. One-way sensitivity analyses were conducted to identify the cost-effective scenarios. IMPT was considered as cost-effective if the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was below the societal willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold. Results Compared with IMRT, IMPT provided an extra 0.205 quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) at an additional cost of 34,926.6 US dollars ($), and had an ICER of $170,082.4/ QALY for the base case. At the current WTP of China ($33,558 / QALY) and a current IMPT treatment costs of $50,000, IMPT should provide a minimum NTCP-reduction of 47.5, 50.8, 55.6, 63.3 and 77.2% to be considered cost-effective for patient age levels of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50-year-old, respectively. For patients at the median age level, reducing the current IMPT costs ($50,000) to a $30,000 level would make the minimum NTCP-reduction threshold for “cost-effective” decrease from 91.4 to 44.6%, at the current WTP of China (from 69.0 to 33.5%, at a WTP of $50,000 / QALY; and from 39.7 to 19.1%, at a WTP of $100,000 / QALY). Conclusions Cost-effective scenarios of PBT exist in Chinese OPC patients at the current WTP of China. Considering a potential upcoming increase in PBT use in China, such cost-effective scenarios may further expand if a decrease of proton treatment costs occurs or an increase of WTP level.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenna L. Yoder ◽  
Khalid M. Kamal

Objectives: To explore the use of pharmacoeconomic principles through examination of economic evaluations pertaining to the combination of the monoclonal antibody rituximab with conventional CHOP (cyclophosphamide/doxorubicin/ vincristine/ prednisone) or CHOP-like chemotherapy regimens in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Methods: A literature search was conducted using Evidence-Based Medical Reviews (EBMR), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (IPA), and Medline databases to identify all economic studies relating to rituximab in combination with CHOP or CHOP-like regimens. The systematic evaluation also utilized the Quality of Health Economic Studies instrument to assess the quality of each study that was included in the final review. Results: Initially, eight studies were retrieved which included the use of rituximab in non-Hodgkin lymphoma treatment. Of these, four studies were excluded as rituximab was used as a stand-alone treatment option. The remaining four studies involved conventional CHOP therapy versus the combination with rituximab (R-CHOP) in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. One study employed a cost-effectiveness analysis while the remaining three studies used a cost-utility analysis and reported the outcomes in terms of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Conclusions: The cost-effectiveness evaluation illustrated the dominance of R-CHOP over CHOP-alone in terms of both lower costs and increased life years gained. The cost-utility of R-CHOP in terms of costs/QALYs were below the accepted threshold of 50,000 in international monetary units. Through examination of evaluation principles employed, it is found that valid results are highly dependent on the input data, assumptions, and sensitivity analyses. Clinical decisionmakers must take into account specific inclusions of costs relevant to their own practice setting.


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