Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology (Sep 2024)

Cost-effectiveness analysis of durvalumab plus tremelimumab as first-line therapy in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma

  • Weiting Liao,
  • Huiqiong Xu,
  • David Hutton,
  • Qiuji Wu,
  • Yang Yang,
  • Mingyang Feng,
  • Wanting Lei,
  • Liangliang Bai,
  • Junying Li,
  • Qiu Li

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/17588359241274625
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16

Abstract

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Background: The HIMALAYA trial found that durvalumab plus tremelimumab significantly prolonged progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) compared with sorafenib. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the cost-effectiveness of durvalumab plus tremelimumab compared with sorafenib in the first-line HCC setting. Design: A Markov model-based cost-effectiveness analysis. Methods: We created a Markov model to compare healthcare costs and clinical outcomes of HCC patients treated with durvalumab plus tremelimumab in the first-line setting compared with sorafenib. We estimated transition probabilities from randomized trials. Lifetime direct healthcare costs, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were calculated for first-line durvalumab plus tremelimumab compared with sorafenib from a US payer’s perspective. Results: In the base case, first-line durvalumab plus tremelimumab was associated with an improvement of 0.29 QALYs compared with sorafenib. While both treatment strategies were associated with considerable lifetime expenditures, first-line durvalumab plus tremelimumab was less expensive than sorafenib ($188,405 vs $218,584). The incremental net monetary benefit for durvalumab plus tremelimumab versus sorafenib was $72,762 (valuing QALYs at $150,000 each). The results of durvalumab plus tremelimumab were better in terms of costs and health outcomes in patients with HBV-related HCC and high alpha-fetoprotein levels. Conclusion: First-line durvalumab plus tremelimumab was estimated to be dominant for the treatment of unresectable HCC compared with sorafenib from a US payer’s perspective.