Cost-Effectiveness analysis of the 21-Gene platform for guiding treatment decisions for early Hormone-Positive breast cancer: the perspective of the Brazilian public health system.

INTRODUCTION

The 21-gene platform Oncotype DX helps clinicians identify women with early- stage estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer who will not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. However, it is too expensive to be implemented by the Brazilian public health system (SUS). Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of a new 21- gene platform for guiding treatment decisions in these patients.

METHODS

Cost-effectiveness analysis, conducted over a 6-month period, based on standard values payable by the SUS for adjuvant hormone therapy and chemotherapy. Effectiveness was measured in quality-adjusted life years, and sensitivity analyses for different hypothetical costs of the 21-gene platform were performed.

RESULTS

When all patients were considered, decision tree analysis revealed a benefit of standard clinical risk factor-based approach alone over the use of the 21-gene platform for making treatment decisions. However, for patients classified as high risk according to clinical factors, the 21-gene platform was less expensive than the standard clinical risk factor-based approach, with a platform cost of up to USD 294.75. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) for the platform was lower than that of the 2022 Brazilian gross domestic product per capita (used as the willingness to pay) up to a 21-gene platform cost of USD 1,505.46.

CONCLUSION

The use of the 21-gene platform can be cost effective for guiding treatment decisions in early ER- positive breast cancer treated by the SUS for patients classified at high risk on the basis of clinical factors if a cost limit of US$ 1,505.46 per test is considered.