The cost-effectiveness of dual oral antiplatelet therapy following percutaneous coronary intervention: a Swedish analysis of the CREDO trial.

The CREDO trial demonstrated the clinical efficacy of 12-month antiplatelet therapy with clopidogrel compared to standard 28-day treatment with a 27% relative reduction in the combined risk of death, myocardial infarction, or stroke in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and being treated with aspirin. This study evaluated the long-term cost-effectiveness of 12-month vs. 28-day therapy with clopidogrel in Sweden. A Markov model was developed which assumed a hypothetical cohort of patients in a post-PCI state to have certain risks of suffering one of the endpoints of the CREDO trial: stroke, myocardial infarction, or death. The model predicted a mean survival of 12.098 years in the 12-month arm vs. 12.026 in the 28-day arm, an incremental gain of 0.072 life-years. The gain in survival came at a predicted incremental cost of Euro 217, resulting in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of Euro 3,022. Thus the predicted cost-effectiveness ratio of long-term treatment with clopidogrel in patients undergoing PCI is well below the threshold values currently considered cost-effective.