Objective: This is a preplanned, health economic evaluation from the LIGRO trial. One hundred patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) and standardized future liver remnant <30% were randomized to associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy (ALPPS) or two-staged hepatectomy (TSH).

Summary background data: TSH, is an established method in advanced CRLM. ALPPS has emerged providing improved resection rate and survival. The health care costs and health outcomes, combining health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and survival into quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), of ALPPS and TSH have not previously been evaluated and compared.

Methods: Costs and QALYs were compared from treatment start up to 2 years. Costs are estimated from resource use, including all surgical interventions, length of stay after interventions, diagnostic procedures and chemotherapy, and applying Swedish unit costs. QALYs were estimated by combining survival and HRQoL data, the latter being assessed with EQ-5D 3L. Estimated costs and QALYs for each treatment strategy were combined into an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Nonparametric bootstrapping was used to assess the joint distribution of incremental costs and QALYs.

Results: The mean cost difference between ALPPS and TSH was 12,662€, [95% confidence interval (CI): -10,728-36,051; P = 0.283]. Corresponding mean difference in life years and QALYs was 0.1296 (95% CI: -0.12-0.38; P = 0.314) and 0.1285 (95% CI: -0.11-0.36; P = 0.28), respectively. The ICER was 93,186 and 92,414 for QALYs and life years as outcomes, respectively.

Conclusions: Based on the 2-year data, the cost-effectiveness of ALPPS is uncertain. Further research, exploring cost and health outcomes beyond 2 years is needed.

Background

Laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy is being implemented worldwide. The aim of this study was to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis from a health care perspective.

Methods

This cost-effectiveness analysis was based on the randomized controlled trial LAPOP, where 60 patients were randomized to open or laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy. For the follow-up of two years, resource use from a health care perspective was recorded, and health-related quality of life was assessed using the EQ-5D-5L. The per-patient mean cost and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were compared using nonparametric bootstrapping.

Results

Fifty-six patients were included in the analysis. The mean health care costs were lower, €3863 (95% CI: -€8020 to €385), for the laparoscopic group. Postoperative quality of life improved with laparoscopic resection and resulted in a gain in QALYs of 0.08 (95% CI: −0.09 to 0.25). The laparoscopic group had lower costs and improved QALYs in 79% of bootstrap samples. With a cost-per-QALY threshold of €50 000, 95.4% of the bootstrap samples were in favour of laparoscopic resection.

Conclusion

Laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy is associated with numerically lower health care costs and improvements in QALYs compared with the open approach. The results support the ongoing transition from open to laparoscopic distal pancreatectomies.

Tandvårds- och läkemedelsförmånsverket (TLV) genomför på uppdrag av regeringen ett arbete med att utveckla metoder för hälsoekonomiska utvärderingar av precisionsmedicin och betalningsmodeller för avancerade terapiläkemedel (ATMP). TLV redovisar i sin andra rapport inom ramen för uppdraget ett antal nya möjliga metoder som kan användas i en hälsoekonomisk utvärdering för att värdera huruvida de priser som företagen efterfrågar är rimliga i förhållande till läkemedlens nytta. Eftersom hälsoekonomiska utvärderingar alltid är behäftade med osäkerhet i skattningarna är frågan om hur osäkerhet skall analyseras och beskrivas central för precisionsmedicin och ATMP då dataunderlagen ofta är knapphändiga. I en slutsats från ett tidigare arbete om utmaningarna med att utvärdera kostnader och hälsoeffekter inom ramen för precisionsmedicin konstaterades det att osäkerheten i skattningarna av kostnadseffektivitet kommer att öka när patientpopulationerna som utvärderas blir allt mindre. Vidare framgick det i de tidigare arbetena att TLVs ansats för att beskriva och analysera osäkerhet inte alltid är helt tydlig. Som en del i TLVs regeringsuppdrag ingår det att beskriva och tydliggöra osäkerheter i skattningar av kostnadseffektivitet samt hur dessa osäkerhet kan påverka osäkerhet i prioriteringsbeslut och den här rapporten är en del i det arbetet.

Rapporten är fristående från den rapport som TLV skrivit inom ramen för regeringsuppdraget men har som mål att ge en kompletterande beskrivning av de osäkerheter som oftast föreligger när hälsoekonomiska utvärderingar utgör en del av ett underlag för prioriteringsbeslut. Förhoppningen är att denna rapport tillsammans med TLVs rapport ska stimulera till fortsatt diskussion om potentiella lösningar för att hantera utmaningar inte bara med precisionsmedicin och ATMP utan även med beslutsfattande under osäkerhet generellt inom hälso- och sjukvården.

In the past two decades, most high-income countries have reduced their hospital bed capacity. This could be a sign of increased efficiency but could also reflect a degradation in quality of care. In this paper, we use repeated cross-sections on mortality and staffed hospital beds per capita in all 21 Swedish regions to estimate the potential death toll from reduced bed capacity. Between 2001 and 2019, mortality and beds decreased across all regions, but regions making smaller bed reductions experienced on average greater decreases in mortality, equivalent to one less death per three beds retained. This estimate is stable to a wide range of specifications and to adjustment for potential confounders, which supports a causal interpretation. Our results imply that by providing one more bed, Swedish health care could produce about three quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) at a cost of SEK 400,000 (∼US$40,000) per QALY. These findings could be informative about the marginal productivity of health care and support the credibility of empirical work attempting to estimate the opportunity cost of funding new healthcare interventions subject to a constrained budget.

Tandvårds- och läkemedelsförmånsverket (TLV) har inom ramen för ett regeringsuppdrag undersökt hur hälsoekonomiska bedömningar för precisionsmedicin kan utvecklas samt utrett möjliga betalningsmodeller för gen- och cellterapier (ATMP). Inom ramen för detta uppdrag har CMT bistått TLVs utredning genom utrednings- och analysarbete kopplat till vissa av de frågeställningar som myndigheten valt att fokusera på i regeringsuppdraget. Föreliggande rapport redovisar resultatet av det arbetet. Syftet har varit att ge en tillräckligt detaljerad beskrivning av hälsoekonomisk utvärderingsmetod för att kunna problematisera hälsoekonomiska utvärderingsaspekter av precisionsmedicin och ATMP. Rapporten gör inte anspråk på att utreda alla aspekter kopplade till precisionsmedicin och ATMP och syftar inte till att ge några definitiva lösningar på de komplexa utmaningar som dessa utvärderingar innebär. Rapporten kan läsas fristående från TLVs huvudrapport men innehållet och de exempel som redovisas präglas av vad utredarna inom ramen för TLVs uppdrag har fokuserat på. Författarna är ensamt ansvariga för innehållet i den här rapporten.

In a recent extended essay, philosopher Daniel Hausman goes a long way towards dismissing severity as a morally relevant attribute in the context of priority setting in healthcare. In this response, we argue that although Hausman certainly points to real problems with how severity is often interpreted and operationalised within the priority setting context, the conclusion that severity does not contain plausible ethical content is too hasty. Rather than abandonment, our proposal is to take severity seriously by carefully mapping the possibly multiple underlying accounts to well-established ethical theories, in a way that is both morally defensible and aligned with the term’s colloquial uses.

Purpose. Clinical practice variations and low implementation of effective and cost-effective health care technologies are a key challenge for health care systems and may lead to suboptimal treatment and health loss for patients. The purpose of this work was to subcategorize the expected value of perfect implementation (EVPIM) to enable estimation of the absolute and relative value of eliminating slow, low, and delayed implementation. Methods. Building on the EVPIM framework, this work defines EVPIM subcategories to estimate the expected value of eliminating slow, low, or delayed implementation. The work also shows how information on regional implementation patterns can be used to estimate the value of eliminating regional implementation variation. The application of this subcategorization is illustrated by a case study of the implementation of an antiplatelet therapy for the secondary prevention after myocardial infarction in Sweden. Incremental net benefit (INB) estimates are based on published cost-effectiveness assessments and a threshold of SEK 250,000 (22,300) pound per quality-adjusted life year (QALY). Results. In the case study, slow, low, and delayed implementation was estimated to represent 22%, 34%, and 44% of the total population EVPIM (2941 QALYs or SEK 735 million), respectively. The value of eliminating implementation variation across health care regions was estimated to 39% of total EVPIM (1138 QALYs). Conclusion. Subcategorizing EVPIM estimates the absolute and relative value of eliminating different parts of suboptimal implementation. By doing so, this approach could help decision makers to identify which parts of suboptimal implementation are contributing most to total EVPIM and provide the basis for assessing the cost and benefit of implementation activities that may address these in future implementation of health care interventions.

Given the setting of Stockholm County, a recently published health-economic analysis shows that the cost per Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) of a free TBE vaccinations program is below generally acceptable cost-effectiveness thresholds in Sweden. A report from the Public Health Agency (PHA), based on similar input data, shows that it is not cost effective to subsidize TBE vaccination in the Stockholm county. The main difference in the two analyses is the time horizon for the analyses; a life-time perspective versus 10-year perspective. Health economics of vaccination strategies should be based on a long time perspective and especially when the disease is more severe in older adults, i.e. TBE. Health-care decision-makers should be aware of the importance of the time horizon for the results when considering these evaluations in prioritization decisions. With a life-time perspective a TBE-vaccination program appears cost-effective.

Beräknat på ett livstidsperspektiv är kostnaden per kvalitetsjusterat levnadsår (QALY) för samhällsfinansierad TBE-vaccination i ett område med TBE-incidens och sjukvårdskostnader motsvarande Stockholms län 28 000–161 000 kronor, beroende på ålder vid vaccinationsstart.

I hälsoekonomiska analyser bör det tydligt framgå vilket tidsperspektiv som använts när vaccination utvärderas, eftersom detta kan vara avgörande för slutsatserna.