Cost-effectiveness analysis of octreotide long acting release and lanreotide slow release for the treatment of postoperative patients with active acromegaly in China

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of octreotide long acting release (LAR) vs lanreotide slow release (SR) for the treatment of postoperative acromegalic patients with elevated levels of growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in China. Methods: A decision tree model was constructed and the treatment impact was projected for one year in Chinese setting. The clinical efficacy measure used was the percentage of patients achieving normalization (control) of either IGF-1 or GH levels. Efficacy of octreotide LAR and lanreotide SR, incidence of comorbidities, impact of acromegaly on health-related quality of life, and drug-related side effects data were obtained from literature. The cost of medication was collected through a chart review from five hospitals in five cities of China. Clinical experts from these hospitals were requested to complete a questionnaire to document the utilization of medical resources, costs of comorbidities, side effects as well as cost of administration. One-way sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the robustness of the results. Results: Compared to lanreotied SR group, the percentage of patients achieving normalization of IGF-1 and GH levels of octreotide LAR group were 10% and 9% higher, respectively. When either IGF-1 or GH control were used as the efficacy measure, patients in the octreotide LAR group exhibit less comorbidities and need less continued treatment with a second operation and radiotherapy than those in lanreotide SR group. When IGF-1 was used as efficacy measure, octreotide LAR not only achieved better efficacy but resulted in overall cost-saving, with a total cost savings of ￥ 3 792 per patient for one year, which demonstrated that octreotide LAR was a dominant cost-saving strategy. When GH control was used as the efficacy measure, octreotide LAR achieved a better overall clinical efficacy with a slightly higher total costs (￥ 4 121 higher per patient per year). Sensitivity analysis didn't change the conclusion that octreotide LAR remains dominant over lanreotide SR, indicating the robustness of this model. Conclusion: Octreotide LAR achieved better overall biochemical control compared with lanreotide SR which result in less comorbidity rate, second operation and radiotherapy as well as related costs.