No abstract

while the cost for hospitalization and clinic visit were captured from Hong Kong Gazette. FTE hour was determined by literature review and converted to monetary value by an hourly rate at mid-point of nurse and pharmacist post. All costs were expressed in Hong Kong Dollar (1 USD= 7.8 HKD). Costs were not discounted due to short time horizon. One-way deterministic sensitivity analysis was performed to see the effect of changes of drug acquisition, changes in the FTE based on confidence interval and changes in body weight (±20%) on cost differences. RESULTS: Based on literature evaluation, 0.18 FTE nursing time and 0.14 FTE pharmacist time could be saved weekly if SC formulation was employed. After an 18-cycle of treatment with SC trastuzumab, the drug acquisition cost and the cost for health care professionals were lowered by HKD 73,720.0 and HKD 4,416.0 respectively, equivalent to an annual saving of HKD 52,316,614. The current model was most sensitive to body weight and drug acquisition cost but not changes in nursing and pharmacist time. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that SC formulation of trastuzumab would be a cost-saving therapy for HER2+ breast cancer patients in Hong Kong. Drug acquisition cost was identified as the most sensitive parameter to the total cost of treatment.