Promising first-line immuno-combination therapies for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: A cost-effectiveness analysis.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death all over the world, and brings a heavy social economic burden especially in China. Several immuno-combination therapies have shown promising efficacy in the first-line treatment of unresectable HCC and are widely used in clinical practice. Nevertheless, which combination is the most affordable one is unknown. Our study assessed the cost-effectiveness of the immuno-combinations as first-line treatment for patients with unresectable HCC from the perspective of Chinese payers.

METHODS

A Markov model was built according to five multicenter, phase III, open-label, randomized trials (Himalaya, IMbrave150, ORIENT-32, CARES-310, LEAP-002) to investigate the cost-effectiveness of tremelimumab plus durvalumab (STRIDE), atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (A + B), sintilimab plus bevacizumab biosimilar (IBI305) (S + B), camrelizumab plus rivoceranib (C + R), and pembrolizumab plus lenvatinib (P + L). Three disease states were included: progression free survival (PFS), progressive disease (PD) as well as death. Medical costs were searched from West China Hospital, published literatures or the Red Book. Cost-effectiveness ratios (CERs) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) were evaluated to compare costs among different combinations. Sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the robust of the model.

RESULTS

The total cost and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) of C + R, S + B, P + L, A + B and STRIDE were $12,109.27 and 0.91, $26,961.60 and 1.12, $55,382.53 and 0.83, $70,985.06 and 0.90, $84,589.01 and 0.73, respectively, resulting in the most cost-effective strategy of C + R with CER of $13,306.89 per QALY followed by S + B with CER of $24,072.86 per QALY. Compared with C + R, the ICER of S + B strategy was $70,725.38 per QALY, which would become the most cost-effective when the willing-to-pay threshold exceeded $73,500/QALY. In the subgroup analysis, with the application of Asia results in Leap-002 trial, the model results were the same as global data. In the sensitivity analysis, with the variation of parameters, the results were robust.

CONCLUSION

As one of the promising immuno-combination therapies in the first-line systemic treatment of HCC, camrelizumab plus rivoceranib demonstrated the potential to be the most cost-effective strategy, which warranted further studies to best inform the real-world clinical practices.