BACKGROUND: Opioid-induced constipation is a common adverse event in patients with advanced illness and has a significant negative impact on patients' quality of life and costs. AIM: To examine the cost-effectiveness of treating opioid-induced constipation with methylnaltrexone bromide (MNTX) plus standard care compared with standard care alone in patients with advanced illness who receive long-term opioid therapy from a third-party payer perspective in the Netherlands. METHODS: A decision-analytical model was created in which advanced-illness patients with constipation were treated with MNTX plus standard care or standard care alone. Clinical efficacy in terms of percentage of patients with rescue-free laxation and time to rescue-free laxation were obtained from a randomized, controlled clinical study. Resource use, costs, utilities and mortality were obtained from published literature and supplemented with data from clinical experts. RESULTS: Treatment with MNTX plus standard care results in more days without constipation symptoms. Cost of MNTX was mostly offset by reduction in other constipation-related costs. Thus, treating with MNTX plus standard care is cost-effective, with an incremental cost per QALY of 40,865 euro. Results were robust to changes in all parameters. CONCLUSIONS: Although using MNTX may increase total costs, MNTX plus standard care is cost-effective in treating advanced-illness patients with opioid-induced constipation.
RCT Entities:
BACKGROUND: Opioid-induced constipation is a common adverse event in patients with advanced illness and has a significant negative impact on patients' quality of life and costs. AIM: To examine the cost-effectiveness of treating opioid-induced constipation with methylnaltrexone bromide (MNTX) plus standard care compared with standard care alone in patients with advanced illness who receive long-term opioid therapy from a third-party payer perspective in the Netherlands. METHODS: A decision-analytical model was created in which advanced-illnesspatients with constipation were treated with MNTX plus standard care or standard care alone. Clinical efficacy in terms of percentage of patients with rescue-free laxation and time to rescue-free laxation were obtained from a randomized, controlled clinical study. Resource use, costs, utilities and mortality were obtained from published literature and supplemented with data from clinical experts. RESULTS: Treatment with MNTX plus standard care results in more days without constipation symptoms. Cost of MNTX was mostly offset by reduction in other constipation-related costs. Thus, treating with MNTX plus standard care is cost-effective, with an incremental cost per QALY of 40,865 euro. Results were robust to changes in all parameters. CONCLUSIONS: Although using MNTX may increase total costs, MNTX plus standard care is cost-effective in treating advanced-illnesspatients with opioid-induced constipation.
Authors: W Frank Peacock; Neal Slatkin; Patrick Gagnon-Sanschagrin; Jessica Maitland; Annie Guérin; George Joseph Journal: Adv Ther Date: 2022-03-17 Impact factor: 3.845