Net cost of palivizumab for respiratory syncytial virus prophylaxis during the 1998/99 season in northern Alberta.

OBJECTIVE

Palivizumab has been shown to decrease respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalization rates in preterm infants and infants with chronic lung disease. The objective of the present study was to determine whether the use of palivizumab during the 1998/99 RSV season would have resulted in a cost-saving in infants discharged from Edmonton hospitals.

DESIGN

A retrospective study of RSV hospitalizations was performed by contacting parents and reviewing hospital lists. The net cost of using palivizumab was determined by comparing the cost of giving the drug from November 1, 1998 to April 1, 1999 with the cost of potentially averted medical transports and hospitalizations.

POPULATION

One hundred fifty-nine infants discharged from Edmonton hospitals who met the Canadian Paediatric Society's criteria for receiving palivizumab during the 1998/99 RSV season were studied.

RESULTS

The cost of using palivizumab in these 159 study infants would have been $753,300. The infants had 21 RSV hospitalizations and required four medical transports. The estimated cost of RSV hospital-based care for these infants was $168,888. Assuming a drug efficacy of 39% in infants with chronic lung disease and 78% in infants born before 33 weeks' gestation with no chronic lung disease, $121,147 of these costs could have been averted if palivizumab had been used.

CONCLUSIONS

The net cost to the health care system of using palivizumab, as recommended in the Canadian Paediatric Society guidelines, in study infants in northern Alberta during the 1998/99 RSV season would have been $632,153.