Objectives: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) remains a major adverse effect of cancer chemotherapy which may increase morbidity, reduce quality of life and threaten the success of cancer therapy. Aprepitant is effective in preventing CINV, achieving higher complete response (no emesis and no rescue therapy) compared to standard prevention, in patients receiving either highly (HEC) or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy (MEC; absolute reduction = 11 and 13%, respectively). We assessed the cost effectiveness of aprepitant-based vs standard prevention in these indications in Belgium.
Materials and methods: A decision analytical model was developed in MS Excel (Fig. 1). To estimate resource use, two approaches were used. The first is based on the preventive regimens applied in randomized controlled trials comparing aprepitant-based CINV prevention (for HEC: aprepitant days 1-3, ondansetron 32 mg i.v. day 1, oral placebo twice daily days 2-4, oral dexamethasone days 1-4; for MEC: aprepitant days 1-3, ondansetron 16 mg p.o. day 1, placebo on days 2-3, oral dexamethasone day 1), vs a standard regimen (for HEC: oral placebo days 1-3, ondansetron 32 mg i.v. day 1 and 16 mg p.o. days 2-4, oral dexamethasone days 1-4; for MEC: oral placebo, ondansetron 16 mg p.o. days 1-3, dexamethasone day 1) The second analysis is based on current real-world resource use in the Belgian setting in the prevention of CINV using a longitudinal Hospital Database. CINV-specific utility values were used to calculate quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Drug costs were obtained from official reimbursement listings. Treatment costs for CINV were obtained from a German study and adapted to Belgium.
Results: The aprepitant-based regimen is associated with 0.003 and 0.014 more QALYs in HEC and MEC, respectively and with per patient savings of <euro>66.84 (trial based) and <euro>74.62 (real-life based) for HEC and <euro>17.95 (trial based) and <euro>21.70 (real-life based) for MEC. Hence, aprepitant is both more effective and less expensive (=dominant). One-way sensitivity analyses were performed on treatment cost of emesis, the clinical benefit of aprepitant and the cost of ondansetron and showed that the results were robust on the first two parameters but sensitive on the decrease in cost of ondansetron for the moderately emetogenic chemotherapy regimens.
Conclusions: In both approaches, the aprepitant-based strategy is more effective and less expensive compared to standard care.