Does screening for hypertension improve cost-effectiveness in preventing cardiovascular disease in the Vietnamese population?
Integrating screening for hypertension into routine medical examination in Vietnam is highly cost-effective for preventing cardiovascular disease, particularly when tailored by age, sex, and screening interval.
OBJECTIVE: To inform development of guidelines for hypertension management in Vietnam, we evaluated the cost-effectiveness of different strategies on screening for hypertension in preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD). METHODS: A decision tree was combined with a Markov model to measure incremental cost-effectiveness of different approaches to hypertension screening. Values used as input parameters for the model were taken from different sources. Various screening intervals (one-off, annually, biannually) and starting ages to screen (35, 45 or 55 years) and coverage of treatment were analysed. We ran both a ten-year and a lifetime horizon. Input parameters for the models were extracted from local and regional data. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was used to evaluate parameter uncertainty. A threshold of three times GDP per capita was applied. RESULTS: Cost per quality adjusted life year (QALY) gained varied in different screening scenarios. In a ten-year horizon, the cost-effectiveness of screening for hypertension ranged from cost saving to Int 758, 695 per QALY gained. For screening of men starting at 55 years, all screening scenarios gave a high probability of being cost-effective. For screening of females starting at 55 years, the probability of favourable cost-effectiveness was 90% with one-off screening. In a lifetime horizon, cost per QALY gained was lower than the threshold of Int 15, 883 in all screening scenarios among males. Similar results were found in females when starting screening at 55 years. Starting screening in females at 45 years had a high probability of being cost-effective if screening biannually was combined with increasing coverage of treatment by 20% or even if sole biannual screening was considered. CONCLUSION: From a health economic perspective, integrating screening for hypertension into routine medical examination and related coverage by health insurance could be recommended. Screening for hypertension has a high probability of being cost-effective in preventing CVD. An adequate screening strategy can best be selected based on age, sex and screening interval.
Nguyen et al. (2016) studied this question.