8. Was an incremental analysis of the consequences and cost of alternatives performed?
Yes ☑ Can’t tell☐ No☐ Incremental cost-effectiveness analysis was performed. It was reported that statin treatment for10 years resulted in an ICER of €35 000 per QALY gained compared with no treatment and that the cost per QALY is approximately €5000 to €125 000 when the 10-year vascular risk for men aged 55 years was varied from 25% to 5%. This shows that the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) over 10 years improved as risk for vascular disease increased meaning statin treatment may not be cost-effective for patients with low risk. Besides, after the level of vascular risk was specified, the ICER decreased slightly with age.
9. Was an adequate sensitivity analysis performed?…show more content… Results were presented as a scatter plot of ICER and as a cost-effectiveness acceptability curve. Besides, one way sensitivity analyses were done for several assumptions which are statin pill costs, adverse effects, lower effectiveness of statins for people older than 65 years, non-adherence, disutility from taking a daily pill, varying baseline utility by age to account for declining quality of life over time, and discount rate. Results of this analyses showed that the model were most sensitive to assumptions on the costs of statin treatment, statin effectiveness, nonadherence, and disutility from taking a statin pill every day. The effects were also explained clearly and are summarised as below.
Assumptions
