Decision Analytic Modeling for Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation of Adjuvanted and Non-Adjuvanted Flu Vaccines in the Elderly 65+

Abstract

The use of immunization strategies to prevent disease and escalation of healthcare costs is well documented The use of flu vaccines among the senior population has been found to reduce health care costs by preventing influenza complications like pneumonia increased susceptibility to bacterial infections use of antibiotics and anti viral drugs and need for care in intensive care settings and death The currently used non adjuvanted vaccines TIV have been found to be having reduced efficacy in the adults due to immune senescence The use of adjuvanted influenza vaccines ATIV has shown to overcome immune senescence and further increase the efficacy of flu vaccine strategies in the population However the ATIV is more expensive compared to TIV The higher costs associated with ATIV can make it difficult for health policy makers to support their use in an already stretched out health care system Random clinical trials have shown that though ATIV do not reduce the infections but have been shown to reduce complications associated with such infections Hence there is a need for methods to help policy makers to show the cost effectiveness of ATIV by using current available vaccine efficacy and health care costs data associated with influenza complications This paper uses decision analytical model tree to simplify cost effectiveness analysis for health policy decision makers to use of adjuvanted influenza vaccines in the population