Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Amifostine (Ethyol®) in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

AbstractPurpose: While amifostine has been demonstrated to reduce the toxicity of some antineoplastic regimens, it is costly and its value in NSCLC is unknown. This analysis determined the cost-effectiveness of administering amifostine to patients with NSCLC from a hospital'S perspective.Methods: A Markov model was developed to predict the costs of care for patients receiving cisplatin, carboplatin, or paclitaxel, with and without amifostine. Each monthly cycle, patients received chemotherapy or had it held. Outcomes and costs of toxicity (febrile neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, and anemia) were assigned to patients each month at a rate consistent with their treatment group. Inputs were derived from a clinical patient registry (patient identification), medication dispensing (transition rates) and laboratory databases (blood product administration), clinical literature (effect of amifostine), and costing catalogs (cost of blood products, medications, and their administration). One-way sensitivity analyses a...