A health economics study recently published in the Journal of Medical Economics found that use of bioTheranostics’ CancerTYPE ID molecular test is a cost-effective approach to standardizing diagnostic methods for patients with metastatic tumors of uncertain origin. The study examines the implications of molecular classification in standardizing the diagnostic process for metastatic cancer. It was designed to estimate the clinical and economic tradeoffs of using CancerTYPE ID to aid in identifying the primary site of difficult-to-diagnose metastatic cancers and to explore whether the gene assay could be used to standardize the diagnostic process and costs for clinicians, payers, and patients.
Four comprehensive health economic models were developed to project, from the payer perspective, the cost and effectiveness of traditional diagnosis and care for patients with metastatic cancer versus incorporating CancerTYPE ID into standard practice. The models included accounted-for patients with eight common cancers, including breast, colon and rectum, kidney and renal pelvis, liver and intrahepatic bile duct, lung and bronchus, ovarian, pancreatic, and prostate cancer.
Clinical results from the primary model show that CancerTYPE ID increased the proportion of patients with metastatic cancer of unknown origin who were treated correctly (81% versus 58%), decreased the proportion of patients treated incorrectly (15% versus 29%) or treated with nonspecific “empiric” therapy (4% versus 13%), and increased quality-adjusted survival by 1.15 months (10.34 versus 9.20 months). Economic results show that using CancerTYPE ID is cost-effective as part of a standardized approach for metastatic cancer diagnosis, with an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $50,273/quality-adjusted life year. This compares favorably to the societal willingness-to-pay threshold in oncology of at least $100,000/quality-adjusted life year.
The cost-effectiveness study was completed by the Partnership for Health Analytic Research, with funding from bioTheranostics. Read the study abstract.
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