Total chemotherapy cost in NSCLC across Europe: Distribution of cost factors observed in three randomised clinical trials

Abstract

7225 Background: Economic analysis of randomized trials and meta-analyses have demonstrated that platinum-based therapy increases survival in NSCLC and is cost effective. However, limited healthcare budgets in most EU healthcare systems are leading to measures to contain or control expenditure on a national or hospital level. The discussion of treatment cost is dominated by data on the cost of the cytotoxic agent, not the total treatment cost. However, for centres where the chemotherapy is administered and the adverse events are treated, total treatment cost per patient should be considered. The present study aimed to determine the percentage of chemotherapy agent to total average treatment cost per patients across the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Methods: A retrospective analysis based on three comparative randomised clinical trials with platinum doublets (Schiller et al., 2002, Comella et al., 2000, Scagliotti et al., 2002) was performed from the viewpoint of the respective healthcare systems (...