Economic Evaluation of Long-Term Survivorship Care for Cancer Patients in OECD Countries: A Systematic Review for Decision-Makers

Abstract

Long-term cancer survivorship care is a crucial component of an efficient healthcare system. For numerous reasons, there has been an increase in the number of cancer survivors; therefore, healthcare decision-makers are tasked with balancing a finite budget with a strong demand for services. Decision-makers require clear and pragmatic interpretation of results to inform resource allocation decisions. For these reasons, the impact and importance of economic evidence are increasing. The aim of the current study was to conduct a systematic review of economic evaluations of long-term cancer survivorship care in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries and to assess the usefulness of economic evidence for decision-makers. A systematic review of electronic databases, including MEDLINE, PubMed, PsycINFO and others, was conducted. The reporting quality of the included studies was appraised using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist. Each included study’s usefulness for decision-makers was assessed using an adapted version of a previously published approach. Overall, 3597 studies were screened, and of the 235 studies assessed for eligibility, 34 satisfied the pre-determined inclusion criteria. We found that the majority of the included studies had limited value for informing healthcare decision-making and conclude that this represents an ongoing issue in the field. We recommend that authors explicitly include a policy statement as part of their presentation of results.

Estimation of lifetime costs for patients receiving a transplant: the case of liver transplantation related to hepatitis B in Italy

“…The formers were assigned only once to the corresponding cycle of occurrence; the latter were assigned to the patient annually, from the date of complication/comorbidity until death, except for de novo malignancies and HBIG prophylaxis. Consistent with other modeling approaches ( 30 ), the annual costs of de novo malignancies started in the incident year throughout the five subsequent years.…”

Neurosurgical Defeats: Critically Ill Patients and the Role of Palliative Care Service

“…The early implementation of palliative care is requested by the reduced cognitive ability of brain tumor patients [ 9 ] and by the heavy distress that is experienced by caregivers. Moreover, in the context of the heavy socioeconomic burden of cancer [ 10 , 11 ], it has been shown that early palliative care activation reduces the costs of hospitalizations [ 12 ] and leads to an increase in home discharge for end-of-life care [ 13 ]. In most of the cases discussed here, caregivers had to face a sudden worsening of patients’ neurological conditions without having the possibility to set up adequate domestic assistance: this can explain the low rate of home deaths in our series.…”

A systematic review on reporting quality of economic evaluations for negotiated glucose-lowering drugs in China national reimbursement drug list

“…Decision-makers require clear interpretation of EEs results to inform reimbursement decisions [ 5 ]. Notably, the adequacy of reporting various elements of any health economic evaluation is imperative to benefit the understanding and interpretation of these studies.…”