Economic Impact of Gene Expression Profiling in Patients with Early-Stage Breast Cancer in France.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The heterogeneous nature of breast cancer can make decisions on adjuvant chemotherapy following surgical resection challenging. Oncotype DX is a validated gene expression profiling test that predicts the likelihood of adjuvant chemotherapy benefit in early-stage breast cancer. The aim of this study is to determine the costs of chemotherapy in private hospitals in France, and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Oncotype DX from national insurance and societal perspectives. METHODS: A multicenter study was conducted in seven French private hospitals, capturing retrospective data from 106 patient files. Cost estimates were used in conjunction with a published Markov model to assess the cost-effectiveness of using Oncotype DX to inform chemotherapy decision making versus standard care. Sensitivity analyses were performed. RESULTS: The cost of adjuvant chemotherapy in private hospitals was estimated at EUR 8,218 per patient from a national insurance perspective and EUR 10,305 from a societal perspective. Cost-effectiveness analysis indicated that introducing Oncotype DX improved life expectancy (+0.18 years) and quality-adjusted life expectancy (+0.17 QALYs) versus standard care. Oncotype DX was found cost-effective from a national insurance perspective (EUR 2,134 per QALY gained) and cost saving from a societal perspective versus standard care. Inclusion of lost productivity costs in the modeling analysis meant that costs for eligible patients undergoing Oncotype DX testing were on average EUR 602 lower than costs for those receiving standard care. CONCLUSIONS: As Oncotype DX was found both cost and life-saving from a societal perspective, the test was considered to be dominant to standard care. However, the delay in coverage has the potential to erode the quality of the French healthcare system, thus depriving patients of technologies that could improve clinical outcomes and allow healthcare professionals to better allocate hospital resources to improve the standard of care for all patients.

[Adjuvant therapy for breast cancer patients: treatment decision tree from a French cancer network]. / Traitement adjuvant du cancer du sein: création d'un arbre de décision thérapeutique au sein d'un réseau de soins.

Although the benefit of adjuvant therapy has largely been demonstrated for patients with local breast cancer, therapeutic indications remain controversial. The French regional cancer network Oncora investigated the decision-making process for this disease. Based on a thorough review of the literature, the risk of relapse and the potential benefit of adjuvant treatments for each group of patients were evaluated. A consensus decision-tree was drawn in which chemotherapy is proposed only to patients in whom it is expected to decrease the risk of relapse by at least 5 %. This approach, based on a widely accepted decision-making model, makes it possible to offer all patients of the network homogeneous treatment options. However, due to the subjectivity of risk/benefit estimations, patients themselves should become more involved in the decision-making process.