The cost-effectiveness of losartan versus captopril in patients with symptomatic heart failure

2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines

AIM

The "2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure" replaces the "2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure" and the "2017 ACC/AHA/HFSA Focused Update of the 2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure." The 2022 guideline is intended to provide patient-centric recommendations for clinicians to prevent, diagnose, and manage patients with heart failure.

METHODS

A comprehensive literature search was conducted from May 2020 to December 2020, encompassing studies, reviews, and other evidence conducted on human subjects that were published in English from MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, the Cochrane Collaboration, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other relevant databases. Additional relevant clinical trials and research studies, published through September 2021, were also considered. This guideline was harmonized with other American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology guidelines published through December 2021. Structure: Heart failure remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. The 2022 heart failure guideline provides recommendations based on contemporary evidence for the treatment of these patients. The recommendations present an evidence-based approach to managing patients with heart failure, with the intent to improve quality of care and align with patients' interests. Many recommendations from the earlier heart failure guidelines have been updated with new evidence, and new recommendations have been created when supported by published data. Value statements are provided for certain treatments with high-quality published economic analyses.

Cost-effectiveness of a structured medication review approach for multimorbid older adults: Within-trial analysis of the OPERAM study

Background

Inappropriate polypharmacy has been linked with adverse outcomes in older, multimorbid adults. OPERAM is a European cluster-randomized trial aimed at testing the effect of a structured pharmacotherapy optimization intervention on preventable drug-related hospital admissions in multimorbid adults with polypharmacy aged 70 years or older. Clinical results of the trial showed a pattern of reduced drug-related hospital admissions, but without statistical significance. In this study we assessed the cost-effectiveness of the pharmacotherapy optimisation intervention.

Methods

We performed a pre-planned within-trial cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) of the OPERAM intervention, from a healthcare system perspective. All data were collected within the trial apart from unit costs. QALYs were computed by applying the crosswalk German valuation algorithm to EQ-5D-5L-based quality of life data. Considering the clustered structure of the data and between-country heterogeneity, we applied Generalized Structural Equation Models (GSEMs) on a multiple imputed sample to estimate costs and QALYs. We also performed analyses by country and subgroup analyses by patient and morbidity characteristics.

Results

Trial-wide, the intervention was numerically dominant, with a potential cost-saving of CHF 3’588 (95% confidence interval (CI): -7’716; 540) and gain of 0.025 QALYs (CI: -0.002; 0.052) per patient. Robustness analyses confirmed the validity of the GSEM model. Subgroup analyses suggested stronger effects in people at higher risk.

Conclusion

We observed a pattern towards dominance, potentially resulting from an accumulation of multiple small positive intervention effects. Our methodological approaches may inform other CEAs of multi-country, cluster-randomized trials facing presence of missing values and heterogeneity between centres/countries.

2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure

AIM

The "2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure" replaces the "2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure" and the "2017 ACC/AHA/HFSA Focused Update of the 2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure." The 2022 guideline is intended to provide patient-centric recommendations for clinicians to prevent, diagnose, and manage patients with heart failure.

METHODS

A comprehensive literature search was conducted from May 2020 to December 2020, encompassing studies, reviews, and other evidence conducted on human subjects that were published in English from MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, the Cochrane Collaboration, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other relevant databases. Additional relevant clinical trials and research studies, published through September 2021, were also considered. This guideline was harmonized with other American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology guidelines published through December 2021.

STRUCTURE

Heart failure remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. The 2022 heart failure guideline provides recommendations based on contemporary evidence for the treatment of these patients. The recommendations present an evidence-based approach to managing patients with heart failure, with the intent to improve quality of care and align with patients' interests. Many recommendations from the earlier heart failure guidelines have been updated with new evidence, and new recommendations have been created when supported by published data. Value statements are provided for certain treatments with high-quality published economic analyses.

2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure: Executive Summary: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines

AIM

The "2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure" replaces the "2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure" and the "2017 ACC/AHA/HFSA Focused Update of the 2013 ACCF/AHA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure." The 2022 guideline is intended to provide patient-centric recommendations for clinicians to prevent, diagnose, and manage patients with heart failure.

METHODS

A comprehensive literature search was conducted from May 2020 to December 2020, encompassing studies, reviews, and other evidence conducted on human subjects that were published in English from MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBASE, the Cochrane Collaboration, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other relevant databases. Additional relevant clinical trials and research studies, published through September 2021, were also considered. This guideline was harmonized with other American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology guidelines published through December 2021. Structure: Heart failure remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. The 2022 heart failure guideline provides recommendations based on contemporary evidence for the treatment of these patients. The recommendations present an evidence-based approach to managing patients with heart failure, with the intent to improve quality of care and align with patients' interests. Many recommendations from the earlier heart failure guidelines have been updated with new evidence, and new recommendations have been created when supported by published data. Value statements are provided for certain treatments with high-quality published economic analyses.

Evaluating Cost-Effectiveness Models for Pharmacologic Interventions in Adults with Heart Failure: A Systematic Literature Review

BACKGROUND

Heart failure (HF) is a well-recognized public health concern and imposes high economic and societal costs. Decision analytic models exist for evaluating the economic ramifications associated with HF. Despite this, studies that appraise these modelling approaches for augmenting best-practice decisions remain scarce.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective was to conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of published economic models for the management of HF and describe their general and methodological features.

METHODS

This SLR employed a combination of relevant search terms associated with HF, which were used in a number of databases, including MEDLINE, Embase, the National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database, Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry, ScHARR Health Utilities Database and Cochrane Library Database. A number of model features (i.e. model structure, specification, outcomes assessed, scenario and sensitivity analysis, key model drivers) were extracted and subsequently summarized.

RESULTS

Of 64 publications retained, a selection of modelling approaches were identified, including Markov (n = 28), trial-based analytic (n = 22), discrete-event simulation (n = 6), survival analytic (n = 7) and decision-tree modelling (n = 1) approaches. The bulk of publications employed either a cost-utility (n = 27) or cost-effectiveness (n = 36) analysis and evaluated more than one study outcome, which typically included overall costs (n = 59), incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (n = 55), life-years gained (n = 48) and willingness-to-pay thresholds (n = 37). Most publications focused on patients with chronic HF (n = 40) and used New York Heart Association (NYHA) disease classifications to categorize patients and determine disease severity. Few (n = 19) publications documented the use of hospitalization states for modelling patient outcomes and associated costs. A quality assessment of the included publications revealed most articles demonstrated reasonable methodological value.

CONCLUSIONS

We identified numerous decision analytic modelling approaches for evaluating the cost effectiveness of pharmacologic treatments in HF. A Markov cohort model approach was most commonly used, and most models relied on NYHA classes as a proxy of HF severity, disease progression and prognosis.

Barriers to generalizability of health economic evaluations in Latin America and the Caribbean region

Use and acceptance of health economic evaluations (HEEs) has been much greater in developed than in developing nations. Nevertheless, while developing countries lag behind in the development of HEE methods, they could benefit from the progress made in other countries and concentrate on ways in which existing methods can be used or would need to be modified to fulfill their specific needs. HEEs, as context-specific tools, are not easily generalizable from setting to setting. Existing studies regarding generalizability and transferability of HEEs have primarily been conducted in developed countries. Therefore, a legitimate question for policy makers in Latin America and the Caribbean region (LAC) is to what extent HEEs conducted in industrialized economies and in LAC are generalizable to LAC (trans-regional) and to other LAC countries (intra-regional), respectively. We conducted a systematic review, searching the NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED), Office of Health Economics Health Economic Evaluation Database (HEED), LILACS (Latin America health bibliographic database) and NEVALAT (Latin American Network on HEE) to identify HEEs published between 1980 and 2004. We included individual patient- and model-based HEEs (cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, cost-benefit and cost-consequences analyses) that involved at least one LAC country. Data were extracted by three independent reviewers using a checklist validated by regional and international experts. From 521 studies retrieved, 72 were full HEEs (39% randomized controlled trials [RCTs], 32% models, 17% non-randomized studies and 12% mixed trial-modeling approach). Over one-third of identified studies did not specifically report the type of HEE. Cost-effectiveness and cost-consequence analyses accounted for almost 80% of the studies. The three Latin American countries with the highest participation in HEE studies were Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. While we found relatively good standards of reporting the study's question, population, interventions, comparators and conclusions, the overall reporting was poor, and evidence of unfamiliarity with international guidelines was evident (i.e. absence of incremental analysis, of discounting long-term costs and effects). Analysis or description of place-to-place variability was infrequent. Of the 49 trial-based analyses, 43% were single centre, 33% multinational and 18% multicentre national. Main reporting problems included issues related to sample representativeness, data collection and data analysis. Of the 32 model-based studies (most commonly using epidemiological models), main problems included the inadequacy of search strategy, range selection for sensitivity analysis and theoretical justifications. There are a number of issues associated with the reporting and methodology used in multinational and local HEE studies relevant for LAC that preclude the assessment of their generalizability and potential transferability. Although the quality of reporting and methodology used in model-based HEEs was somewhat higher than those from trial-based HEEs, economic evaluation methodology was usually weak and less developed than the analysis of clinical data. Improving these aspects in LAC HEE studies is paramount to maximizing their potential benefits such as increasing the generalizability/transferability of their results.

Analytic considerations in economic evaluations of multinational cardiovascular clinical trials

OBJECTIVES

The growing number of economic evaluations that use data collected in multinational clinical trials raises numerous questions regarding their execution and interpretation. Although recommendations for conducting economic evaluations have been widely disseminated, relatively little guidance has been given for conducting economic evaluations alongside clinical trials, particularly multinational trials.

METHODS

Building on a literature review that was conducted in preparation for an expert workshop, we evaluated a subset of methodological issues related to conducting economic evaluations alongside multinational clinical trials.

RESULTS

We found wide variation in the types of costs included as part of the analyses and in the methods used to assign costs to hospitalization events. Furthermore, we found that the extrapolation of costs and survival outcomes beyond the trial period is an inconsistent practice and is often not dependent on whether a survival benefit was observed in the trial or on the epidemiology or practice patterns in the country to which the findings are directed.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the limited sample size precluded a quantitative analysis of trial characteristics and their associations with the methodologies employed, our findings highlight the need for more guidance to analysts regarding the execution of economic evaluations using data from multinational clinical trials. As the research community grapples with the complexities of methodological and logistical issues involved in multinational economic evaluations, the development of a standardized format to report the basic methodological characteristics of such studies would help to improve transparency and comparability for other analysts and decision-makers.

Socioeconomic relevance of selected treatment strategies in patients with chronic heart failure

More than 2.8% of the population in the USA suffer from chronic heart failure, a condition that primarily afflicts people above the age of 60 years, and results in major expenses for social and health care of affected patients, their caregivers and families. The mainstay of treatment is drug therapy, complemented by comprehensive rehabilitation, invasive procedures, palliative treatment and monitoring. While sufficient health economic evidence exists on the cost-effectiveness of certain standard drugs, such as angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors or beta-blockers, little or no information exists on the cost effectivty of diuretics or aldosterone antagonists. Recently, introduced treatment strategies such as ventricular assistance devices or telemonitoring have yet to be evaluated for their cost-effectiveness in terms of risk of hospitalization, life expectancy and quality of life. With respect to the aging population and the drastically increasing costs of healthcare for heart failure patients, the goal is a more conscious and cost-effective resource allocation. This can help reduce the incidence of over and under treatment, diminish side effects and consequently improve symptoms, quality of life and life expectancy in the affected population. Further clinical trials and health economic analyses are necessary to optimize recommendations for healthcare of patients with chronic heart failure.

Assessing generalisability by location in trial-based cost-effectiveness analysis: the use of multilevel models

Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) in health care is increasingly conducted alongside multicentre and multinational randomised controlled clinical trials (RCTs). The increased use of stochastic CEA is designed to account for between-patient sampling variability in cost-effectiveness data assuming that observations are independently distributed. However, between-location variability in cost-effectiveness may result if there is a hierarchical structure in the data; that is, if there is correlation in costs and outcomes between patients recruited in particular locations. This may be expected in multi-location trials given that centres and countries often differ in factors such as clinical practice, patient case-mix and the unit costs of delivering health care. A failure to acknowledge this feature may lead to misleading conclusions in a trial-based economic study. Multilevel modelling (MLM) is an analytical framework that can be used to handle hierarchical cost-effectiveness data. Using data from a recently conducted economic analysis, this paper shows how multilevel modelling can be used to obtain (a) more appropriate estimates of the population average incremental cost-effectiveness and associated standard errors compared to standard stochastic CEA; and (b) location-specific estimates of incremental cost-effectiveness which can be used to explore appropriately the variability between centres/countries of the cost-effectiveness results.

Conducting economic evaluations alongside multinational clinical trials: toward a research consensus

Demand for economic evaluations in multinational clinical trials is increasing, but there is little consensus about how such studies should be conducted and reported. At a workshop in Durham, North Carolina, we sought to identify areas of agreement about how the primary findings of economic evaluations in multinational clinical trials should be generated and presented. In this paper, we propose a framework for classifying multinational economic evaluations according to (a) the sources of an analyst's estimates of resource use and clinical effectiveness and (b) the analyst's method of estimating costs. We review existing studies in the cardiology literature in the context of the proposed framework. We then describe important methodological and practical considerations in conducting multinational economic evaluations and summarize the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Finally, we describe opportunities for future research. Delineation of the various approaches to multinational economic evaluation may assist researchers, peer reviewers, journal editors, and decision makers in evaluating the strengths and limitations of particular studies.

Multinational economic evaluation of valsartan in patients with chronic heart failure: results from the Valsartan Heart Failure Trial (Val-HeFT)

BACKGROUND

The Valsartan Heart Failure Trial (Val-HeFT) compared valsartan versus placebo in 5010 patients taking prescribed background therapy for New York Heart Association class II to IV heart failure. Valsartan reduced the risk of heart failure hospitalization and improved clinical signs and symptoms of heart failure. We sought to compare resource use, costs, and health outcomes among patients taking prescribed therapy for heart failure and randomly assigned to receive valsartan or placebo.

METHODS

Measures of resource use were based on data collected during the trial. Unit cost estimates were collected from individual countries and converted to 1999 US dollars. Total costs were estimated for hospitalizations, inpatient and outpatient physician services, ambulance transportation, deaths outside the hospital, and outpatient cardiovascular medications.

RESULTS

Mean follow-up was 23 months. Mean costs for heart failure hospitalizations were 423 dollars lower among patients receiving valsartan (95% CI, -706 to -146). Mean total costs were 9008 dollars for patients receiving valsartan and 8464 dollars for patients receiving placebo, a net incremental cost of 545 dollars (95% CI, -149 to 1148), including the cost of valsartan. There was an overall reduction in total costs of 929 dollars (95% CI, -3243 to 1533) among patients not receiving an ACE inhibitor at baseline but a slight increase in costs of 334 dollars (95% CI, -497 to 1199) among those receiving an ACE inhibitor without a beta-blocker and a 1246 dollars increase (95% CI, 54 to 2230) in patients receiving both an ACE inhibitor and a beta-blocker at baseline.

CONCLUSIONS

Valsartan provided clinical benefits at a mean incremental cost of 285 dollars per year during the trial. In patients not taking ACE inhibitors, valsartan was economically attractive, increasing survival while reducing or marginally increasing overall costs.

Examining within-country variation of maternity costs in the context of a multicountry, multicentre randomised controlled trial

Understanding why healthcare costs vary between patients and between health facilities is important in guiding health policy decisions as well as in research. However, there is no comprehensive framework that analysts commonly use for expressing and examining causes of cost variation in the field of healthcare. The aim of this study is to better understand the size and causes of within-country healthcare cost variation, through presenting evidence for size and sources of such variations for two countries (Cuba and Thailand) in the context of a randomised controlled trial on antenatal care. The article separates total costs into their two components: unit costs and health service use. Unit costs are further separated into input quantity per patient visit or day, and the prices of these resources. The results show that the main determinant of average cost is the staffing pattern and productivity, whereas the main determinants of health service use include the model of antenatal care being practised and the risk status and illnesses suffered by patients. However, variations in inpatient health service use between facilities are largely related to unexplainable variations in practice between facilities, irrespective of the trial arm. In conclusion, cost variations have important implications for the design of clinical trials and for policy makers using evidence from trials in planning health services and budgets.

Pharmacoeconomic considerations in assessing and selecting congestive heart failure therapies

Over the last two decades the incidence of congestive heart failure (CHF) has increased with aging of the population and in spite of the decline in age-adjusted mortality rates due to coronary heart disease. Its management has seen substantial progress, embodied in the introduction of ACE inhibitors, initially as part of triple therapy in which they complemented diuretics and digoxin, and latterly as first-line therapy. The current consensus on treatment of CHF has been based on the multiple clinical studies performed with ACE inhibitors in which these agents have been shown to prevent a new cardiovascular accident and/or progression to more severe CHF in an increasingly wide range of patients with symptomatic CHF or post-infarction left ventricular dysfunction (ejection fraction </= 40% in some trials or </= 35% in others). Not only have the results shown a marked decrease in all-cause (and especially cardiovascular) mortality, but also a great number of cost-effectiveness analyses have shown the advantages of ACE inhibitors in terms of resource allocation: they are either cost saving or convincingly cost effective compared with standard treatment with digoxin and diuretics. Other drugs require similar cost and clinical analyses before they can earn their place in an add-on strategy. To date, cost savings have been documented only for beta-blockers; implantable devices are still undergoing assessment. Two trends are now competing: one is to downplay add-on strategies and to recommend first-line therapy with ACE inhibitors and beta-blockers at effective doses, supplemented by a raft of non-pharmaceutical measures (specialist nurses, patient education, dietary advice, exercise) in a multidisciplinary approach to CHF; the second is, on the contrary, to prescribe up to five drugs for patients with advanced CHF. The evidence that this decreases hospital admission rates and patient cost is more than anecdotal, but conclusive proof of cost effectiveness is still lacking and the approach presupposes dedicated structures. This review argues that despite technical limitations, a combined approach of CHF therapy based on clinical trials and cost-effectiveness analyses is essential. However, improvements can be made. The absence of sufficient comparative data still makes it difficult to choose between drugs within the same class; institutional purchasers need to conduct such analyses to identify the drugs best suited to their patients' profiles and budgetary constraints.

Therapeutic trials comparing angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers

Two independent pharmacologic methods of specifically interfering with the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system have been brought to the marketplace: angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs). These agents have the potential not only to be very widely used for a broad variety of clinical indications but also to compete against each other as treatments for hypertension, heart failure, renal impairment, and other conditions. Many short-term comparative studies of these two classes of drugs have now been completed. Most have focused on surrogate endpoints, such as blood pressure, renal function, or cough. These studies have generally concluded that ARBs are better tolerated but that the two drug classes otherwise have similar efficacy. The largest clinical trial comparing ARBs and ACE inhibitors thus far completed, Evaluation of Losartan in the Elderly (ELITE 2), failed to confirm the results of a smaller study; it did not demonstrate a significant improvement in outcomes (death or hospitalization for heart failure) with an ARB used alone, despite better tolerability. Many longer-term outcome studies with survival endpoints are under way, but most will compare the combination against an ACE inhibitor alone. These studies will define the optimal use of these agents in medicine for decades to come.