The cost-effectiveness issue of adjuvant trastuzumab in early breast cancer

Abstract

Trastuzumab has shown activity in patients with early breast cancer that overexpresses HER-2, and this drug has been employed in the adjuvant setting. Significant resources have been allocated to finance this new therapy. To support decision makers in their allocation of resources, cost-effectiveness models are constructed to compare the costs and outcomes of anticancer therapy. This survey focuses on studies exploring adjuvant trastuzumab therapy in early-stage breast cancer that have been published since 2003, which report on efficacy, benefit and/or cost data in this setting. The paper summarises the results, focuses on the level of evidence of these studies, compares the calculated cost-effectiveness ratios and makes recommendations for future cost-effectiveness analyses.

Keywords::

• adjuvant
• cost-effectiveness
• early breast cancer
• trastuzumab

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for secretarial assistance from K Krane Norum and the assistance from the library at the University of Tromsø, Norway. A research grant from the University Hospital of North Norway made the presence at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Nice in March 2006 possible and was greatly appreciated. Finally, the author thanks the four anonymous referees for their very useful comments and suggestions.