When Are Statins Cost-Effective in Cardiovascular Prevention? A Systematic Review of Sponsorship Bias and Conclusions in Economic Evaluations of Statins

Ferrán Catalá-López, Gabriel Sanfélix-Gimeno, Manuel Ridao and Salvador Peiró

PLOS ONE, 2013, vol. 8, issue 7, 1-

Abstract: Background: We examined sponsorship of published cost-effectiveness analyses of statin use for cardiovascular (CV) prevention, and determined whether the funding source is associated with study conclusions. Methods and Findings: We searched PubMed/MEDLINE (up to June 2011) to identify cost-effectiveness analyses of statin use for CV prevention reporting outcomes as incremental costs per quality-adjusted life years (QALY) and/or life years gained (LYG). We examined relationships between the funding source and the study conclusions by means of tests of differences between proportions. Seventy-five studies were included. Forty-eight studies (64.0%) were industry-sponsored. Fifty-two (69.3%) articles compared statins versus non-active alternatives. Secondary CV prevention represented 42.7% of articles, followed by primary CV prevention (38.7%) and both (18.7%). Overall, industry-sponsored studies were much less likely to report unfavourable or neutral conclusions (0% versus 37.1%; p

Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0069462

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069462

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