Economics of Acromegaly Treatment in Brazil: A Budget Impact Analysis of Pituitary Surgery Compared with Long-Term Octreotide LAR

Lara Benigno Porto (), Ivan Ricardo Zimmermann and Luciana Ansaneli Naves
Additional contact information
Lara Benigno Porto: University of Brasilia
Ivan Ricardo Zimmermann: Ministry of Health
Luciana Ansaneli Naves: University of Brasilia

PharmacoEconomics - Open, 2019, vol. 3, issue 2, No 13, 247-254

Abstract: Abstract Background Acromegaly is a rare, chronic and debilitating disease whose treatment places a high burden on health systems. In the reality of the Brazilian public health network, many patients are kept on drug treatment because of barriers to access to surgery. Objective The aim of this study was to estimate the costs and budget impact of routine transsphenoidal endoscopic surgery in relation to those of long-term drug treatment with octreotide long-acting release (LAR) from a cohort of patients followed at the referral medical centre for acromegaly treatment in the Federal District, Brazil. Methods Based on micro-costing data collected using mixed methods from a local perspective of the public health system, we performed a budget impact analysis (BIA) on a 3-year time horizon. Uncertainty was handled with deterministic (tornado and scenario) and probabilistic (Monte Carlo simulations) sensitivity analyses. Results Compared with the continued use of octreotide LAR at a dose of 30 mg every 28 days, the incremental budget impact of conducting two surgeries per month, considering a cure rate of 55%, could bring savings of approximately US$879,362.18 (95% CI 860,176.29–898,548.08) over 3 years. Depending on the key variable values, the savings amplitude ranged from US$431,836.39 to US$1,519,132.04. Conclusions Improving access to surgery could result in significant cost reductions in acromegaly treatment. The present study stands out for being the first to estimate the costs of transsphenoidal surgery in the context of the public health system in Brazil.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41669-018-0103-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:pharmo:v:3:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1007_s41669-018-0103-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/adis/journal/41669

DOI: 10.1007/s41669-018-0103-2

Access Statistics for this article

PharmacoEconomics - Open is currently edited by Timothy Wrightson and Christopher Carswell

More articles in PharmacoEconomics - Open from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().