| 1. |
- Chauca Strand, Gabriella, 1995, et al.
(författare)
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Cancer Drugs Reimbursed with Limited Evidence on Overall Survival and Quality of Life : Do Follow-Up Studies Confirm Patient Benefits?
- 2023
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Ingår i: Clinical drug investigation. - : Springer. - 1173-2563 .- 1179-1918. ; 43:8, s. 621-633
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and ObjectiveCancer drug costs have increased considerably within healthcare systems, but many drugs lack quality-of-life (QoL) and overall survival (OS) data at the time of reimbursement approval. This study aimed to review the extent of subsequent literature documenting improvements in OS and QoL for cancer drug indications where no such evidence existed at the time of reimbursement approval.MethodsDrug indications with claims of added therapeutical value but a lack of evidence on OS and QoL that were reimbursed between 2010 and 2020 in Sweden were included for review. Searches were conducted in PubMed and ClinicalTrial.gov for randomized controlled trials examining OS and QoL.ResultsOf the 22 included drug indications, seven were found to have at least one trial with conclusive evidence of improvements in OS or QoL after a mean follow-up of 6.6 years. The remaining 15 drug indications either lacked subsequent randomized controlled trial data on OS or QoL (n = 6) or showed no statistically significant improvements (n = 9). Only one drug demonstrated evidence of improvement in both OS and QoL for its indication.ConclusionsA considerable share of reimbursed cancer drug indications continue to lack evidence of improvement in both OS and QoL. With limited healthcare resources and an increasing cancer burden, third-party payers have strong incentives to require additional post-reimbursement data to confirm any improvements in OS and QoL.
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| 2. |
- Hansson, Stina, 1988-, et al.
(författare)
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Posterior crossbite corrections in the early mixed dentition with quad helix or rapid maxillary expander : a cost-effectiveness analysis of a randomized controlled trial
- 2024
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Ingår i: European Journal of Orthodontics. - : Oxford University Press. - 0141-5387 .- 1460-2210. ; 46:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Unilateral posterior crossbite is a common malocclusion, and early treatment is recommended to enable normal growth. There are several possibilities regarding choice of appliances used for correcting this malocclusion; however, when treatment is financed by public funds the decision needs to be based not only on the effects but also on the effect in relation to the costs. OBJECTIVES: The aim was to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis comparing quad helix (QH) and rapid maxillary expanders (RME; hyrax-type) in children in the early mixed dentition.MATERIAL AND METHODS: Seventy-two patients were randomized to treatment with either QH or RME, at two different centres. Data were collected from the patient's medical records regarding success rate, number of visits, total treatment time, emergency visits, and so forth, together with answers from patient questionnaires concerning absence from school and use of analgesics. A cost-effectiveness analysis with both an intention-to-treat (ITT) and a per-protocol approach was performed, as well as a deterministic sensitivity analysis.RESULTS: The success rate, one year after the completion of the expansion, was equal between groups according to the ITT approach. From a healthcare perspective, the mean cost difference between RME and QH was €32.05 in favour of QH (P = 0.583; NS). From a societal perspective, the mean cost difference was €32.61 in favour of QH (P = 0.742; NS). The total appliance cost alone was higher in the RME group €202.67 resp. €155.58 in the QH group (P = 0.001). The probability of RME having a higher cost was 71% from a healthcare perspective and 62.7% from a societal perspective. The total treatment time was 97 days longer in the QH group. In the deterministic sensitivity analysis, when using a higher valuation of the children's educational loss, the QH becomes €58 more costly than the RME. There was a statistically significant difference in chair time and visits between centres (P < 0.001).CONCLUSION: The difference in costs between RME and QH is not statistically significant, however, there is a slightly higher probability that RME is more expensive than QH with a mean cost of an additional €32 per patient from a healthcare perspective. Different work procedures at different centres indicate that logistics around the patient's treatment is a more important aspect than appliance used to decrease the number of visits and save chair time and thereby also costs.
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| 3. |
- Svensson, Mikael, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Analyses of quality of life in cancer drug trials - a review of measurements and analytical choices in post-reimbursement studies
- 2024
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Ingår i: BMC Cancer. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1471-2407. ; 24:1
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: For drugs reimbursed with limited evidence of patient benefits, confirmatory evidence of overall survival (OS) and quality of life (QoL) benefits is important. For QoL data to serve as valuable input to patients and decision-makers, it must be measured and analyzed using appropriate methods. We aimed to assess the measurement and analyses of post-reimbursement QoL data for cancer drugs introduced in Swedish healthcare with limited evidence at the time of reimbursement. Methods: We reviewed any published post-reimbursement trial data on QoL for cancer drugs reimbursed in Sweden between 2010 and 2020 with limited evidence of improvement in QoL and OS benefits at the time of reimbursement. We extracted information on the instruments used, frequency of measurement, extent of missing data, statistical approaches, and the use of pre-registration and study protocols. Results: Out of 22 drugs satisfying our inclusion criteria, we identified published QoL data for 12 drugs in 22 studies covering multiple cancer types. The most frequently used QoL instruments were EORTC QLQ-C30 and EQ-5D-3/5L. We identified three areas needing improvement in QoL measurement and analysis: (i) motivation for the frequency of measurements, (ii) handling of the substantial missing data problem, and (iii) inclusion and adherence to QoL analyses in clinical trial pre-registration and study protocols. Conclusions: Our review shows that the measurements and analysis of QoL data in our sample of cancer trials covering drugs initially reimbursed without any confirmed QoL or OS evidence have significant room for improvement. The increasing use of QoL assessments must be accompanied by a stricter adherence to best-practice guidelines to provide valuable input to patients and decision-makers.
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| 4. |
- Chauca Strand, Gabriella, 1995, et al.
(författare)
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Assessment of the clinical and cost-effectiveness evidence in the reimbursement decisions of new cancer drugs
- 2022
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Ingår i: ESMO Open. - : Elsevier. - 2059-7029. ; 7:5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: This study aimed to describe the clinical and cost-effectiveness evidence supporting reimbursementdecisions of new cancer drugs and analyze the influence of trial characteristics and the cost per quality-adjusted lifeyears (QALYs) on the likelihood of reimbursement in Sweden.Patients and methods: Data were extracted from all appraisal dossiers for new cancer drugs seeking reimbursement inSweden and claiming added therapeutical value between the years 2010 and 2020. The data were analyzed usingdescriptive statistics, and logistic regression models were also used with the cost per QALY, study design,comparator, and evidence on final outcomes in the clinical trials as predictors of reimbursement.Results: All 60 included appraisals were based on trial evidence that assessed at least one final outcome (overallsurvival [OS] or quality of life [QoL]), although rarely as a primary outcome. Of the appraisals with a final decision(n ¼ 58), 79% were approved for reimbursement. Among the reimbursed drugs, only half had trial evidencedemonstrating improved OS or QoL. Only one drug had trial evidence supporting improvements in both OS andQoL. The average cost per QALY for reimbursed cancer drugs was estimated to be 748 560 SEK (V73 583). A highercost per QALY was found to decrease the likelihood of reimbursement by 9.4% for every 100 000 SEK (V9830)higher cost per QALY (P ¼ 0.03). For cost-effectiveness models without direct evidence of improvements in finaloutcomes, a larger QALY gain was observed compared with those with evidence mainly relying on intermediate andsurrogate outcomes.Conclusions: There are substantial uncertainties in the clinical and cost-effectiveness evidence underlyingreimbursement decisions of new cancer drugs. Decision makers should be cautious of the limited evidence onpatient-centered outcomes and the implications of allocating resources to expensive treatments with uncertainvalue for money.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Fledsberg, Stephanie, et al.
(författare)
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Lifetime healthcare expenditures across socioeconomic groups in Sweden.
- 2023
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Ingår i: European journal of public health. - : Oxford University Press. - 1464-360X .- 1101-1262. ; 33:6, s. 994-1000
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Individuals of lower socioeconomic status generally have higher healthcare expenditures than individuals of higher socioeconomic status. However, little is known about how expenditures are distributed across socioeconomic groups over a lifetime, once accounting for differences in life expectancy. This study describes how lifetime healthcare expenditures are distributed across age, sex and socioeconomic groups in Sweden while adjusting for differences in life expectancy.Healthcare utilization from 2016 were linked to demographic and socioeconomic data for a random sample of individuals aged 20 and above in the four largest Swedish regions (n=440659). Mortality data were used to estimate income- and sex-specific survival rates. Expected lifetime healthcare expenditures were estimated by combining survival rates with mean healthcare expenditures over age, by sex, and income quintile.We find that expected lifetime healthcare expenditures are highest among the first (lowest) income quintile despite their evident lower life expectancy. Expected lifetime expenditures were 17.9% (16.8%) higher in the first income quintile compared to the fifth (highest) quintile for women (men). Individuals in the first income quintile had higher expected lifetime expenditures for all care categories except for primary care.We conclude that despite a lower life expectancy, the quintile of the lowest socioeconomic status still had higher lifetime healthcare expenditures.
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| 7. |
- Johansson, Naimi, 1988, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of primary care cost-sharing among young adults : Varying impact across income groups and gender
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Journal of Health Economics. - : Springer. - 1618-7598 .- 1618-7601. ; 20:8, s. 1271-1280
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We estimate the price sensitivity in health care among adolescents and young adults, and assess how it varies across income groups and gender, using a regression discontinuity design. We use the age differential cost-sharing in Swedish primary care as our identification strategy. At the 20th birthday, the copayment increases from €0 to approx. €10 per primary care physician visit and close to this threshold the copayment faced by each person is distributed almost as good as if randomized. The analysis is performed using high-quality health care and economic register data of 73,000 individuals aged 18–22. Our results show that the copayment decreases the average number of visits by 7%. Among women visits are reduced by 9%, for low-income individuals by 11%, and for low-income women by 14%. In conclusion, modest copayments have significant utilization effects, and even in a policy context with relatively low income inequalities, the effect is substantially larger in low-income groups and among women.
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| 8. |
- Johansson, Naimi, 1988-, et al.
(författare)
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Place or patient as the driver of regional variation in healthcare spending – Discrepancies by category of care
- 2024
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Ingår i: Social Science and Medicine. - : Elsevier. - 0277-9536 .- 1873-5347. ; 342
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study how much regional variation in healthcare spending is driven by place- and patient-specific factors using a random sample of 53,620 regional migrants in Sweden. We find notable differences depending on the category of care, with place-specific factors having a significantly larger impact on specialized outpatient care compared to inpatient and pharmaceutical care. The place effect is estimated to 75% of variation in specialized outpatient care, but 26% or less in variations in inpatient care, and 5% in prescription drug spending. We also find that the empirical estimator has a substantial impact on the estimates of the place-specific effect. The results based on the traditional approach in the literature with two-way fixed effects and event-study models produce much larger estimates of the place-specific effect compared to results based on recently developed heterogeneity-robust models. For total healthcare spending, the traditional two-way fixed effects model estimates a place effect of 78%, while the heterogeneity-robust estimator finds a place effect around 10%. This finding indicates that previous results in this literature, all based on traditional two-way fixed-effects regressions, should be interpreted with care.
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Naimi, 1988
(författare)
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Price sensitivity and regional variation in health care
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Understanding the consequences of current health policy is important in order to design and develop a health care system suitable for future challenges. The purpose of this thesis is to bring evidence on the determinants of regional variation in health care and on individuals’ responsiveness to patient out-of-pocket prices in Sweden. The papers included in the thesis are longitudinal register based studies, using representative samples of the Swedish population, with data obtained from national and regional databases. The analyses are primarily based on econometric methods drawing on quasi-experimental approaches to estimate causal effects. The results in Paper I show that regional level mortality and demographics explain a large part of regional variation in visits to specialists, but has limited association with regional variation in visits to primary care physicians. In Paper II, the results show that the relative effect of individual level characteristics outweighs the effect of region-specific characteristics as the drivers of regional variation in pharmaceutical expenditures. The findings in Paper III show that young adults are price sensitive and reduce their use of primary care services after the introduction of patient out-of-pocket prices, with especially strong effects among low-income groups and women. In Paper IV, the findings show that older adults respond to an upcoming elimination of patient out-of-pocket prices by delaying primary care visits in the months before the policy change, but the results show no evidence for a persistent increase in primary care use after the out-of-pocket price elimination. In conclusion, the findings show that the determinants of regional variation differ within the same health care system, which suggests that the specific institutional settings by type of care are key in understanding regional variation. Further, the results imply that policymakers need to consider heterogeneity and forward-looking behavior in individuals’ sensitivity to out-of-pocket prices when developing health care policy.
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| 10. |
- Johansson, Naimi, 1988-, et al.
(författare)
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Reductions in out-of-pocket prices and forward-looking moral hazard in health care demand
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Health Economics. - : Elsevier. - 0167-6296 .- 1879-1646. ; 87
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Little is known about how patients dynamically respond to a forthcoming reduction in health care out-of-pocket prices. Using a kinked Donut Regression Discontinuity design with kinks entering and exiting the donut, we evaluate a Swedish cost-sharing policy, where primary care out-of-pocket prices were eliminated at age 85. We find evidence of forward-looking moral hazard with older adults delaying primary care visits up to four months before the out-of-pocket elimination and shifting these visits until shortly after. These health care delays are driven by non-urgent care: non-physician visits, planned visits and follow up visits. We find no evidence of severe negative health effects in the short-term as a result of the delay. Contrary to our finding of forward-looking behavior with respect to out-of-pocket prices, we do not find evidence of typical moral hazard, as we do not find a persistent increase in primary health care use after the copayment elimination.
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