The economic value of knowing BRCA status: BRCA testing for optimizing treatment in recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer

Abstract

Background This study aimed to estimate the incremental lifetime effects, costs, and net monetary benefit (NMB) of knowing BRCA information by having better treatment options for recurrent ovarian cancer (ROC) patients in a given year and the cumulative savings or losses of yearly hypothetical cohort testing over 16 years. We compared two strategies: (1) ‘with BRCA information’ and (2) ‘without BRCA information.’ Methods Incremental NMB (INMB) was calculated as the average net monetized benefit of knowing BRCA status. The net monetized value (cumulative INMB) of knowing BRCA information was estimated by multiplying the INMB with the eligible ROC patients in year 2020 and extended for potential ROC patients over 16 yearly hypothetical cohorts of ROC patients Results Knowing BRCA information for ROC patients provided an additional monetized value of $3,528 in healthcare and $3,194 in societal perspectives, respectively. Escalated to all ROC patients in U.S. in 2020 and future incidence ROC estimates, knowing BRCA information resulted in a lifetime net monetized value (cumulative INMB) of $35.6 million (healthcare) and $32.2 million (society) for the 2020 cohort; and yielded an accumulated value of $97.3 million (healthcare) and $88.0 million (society) over 16 yearly hypothetical cohorts of ROC patients Conclusions The economic value of knowing BRCA status of all US ROC patients provides short-term and long-term evidence for optimizing treatment