Objective: Everolimus and axitinib are approved in the US to treat patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after failure on sunitinib or sorafenib, and one prior systemic therapy (e.g., sunitinib), respectively. Two indirect comparisons performed to evaluate progression-free survival in patients treated with everolimus vs axitinib suggested similar efficacy between the two treatments. Therefore, this analysis compares the lifetime costs of these two therapies among sunitinib-refractory advanced RCC patients from a US payer perspective. Research design and methods:A Markov model was developed to simulate a cohort of sunitinib-refractory advanced RCC patients and estimate the cost of treating patients with everolimus vs axitinib. The following health states were included: stable disease without adverse events (AEs), stable disease with AEs, disease progression (PD), and death. The model included the following resources: active treatments, post-progression treatments, adverse events, physician and nurse visits, scans and tests, and palliative care. Resource utilization inputs were derived from a US claims database analysis. Additionally, a 3% annual discount rate was applied to costs, and the robustness of the model results was tested by conducting sensitivity analyses, including those on dosing scheme and post-progression treatment costs. Results:Base case results demonstrated that patients treated with everolimus cost an average of $12,985 (11%) less over their lifetimes than patients treated with axitinib. The primary difference in costs was related to active treatment, which was largely driven by axitinib's higher dose intensity. Results remained consistent across sensitivity analyses for AE and PD treatment costs, as well as dose intensity and discount rates. Conclusion:The results suggest that everolimus likely leads to lower lifetime costs than axitinib for sunitinib-refractory advanced RCC patients in the US.

The main burden associated with HF-REF is related to hospitalizations for heart-failure events. Effective treatment options that decrease hospitalization rates could reduce patients' suffering and potentially offer considerable cost savings.

and bivalirudin or heparinϩGPI in the Premier hospital database were identified. The probability of receiving bivalirudin was estimated using individual and hospital variables; using propensity scores, each bivalirudin patient was matched to 3 heparinϩGPI treated patients.

Results suggest that sunitinib-refractory metastatic renal cell carcinoma patients treated with everolimus may experience significantly improved OS outcomes compared to those treated with sorafenib. However, because this is not a randomized controlled trial, the results should be interpreted as those from an observational study.