A Qualitative Assessment on Geographical Transferability of Patient Preferences: Targeted Literature Review of Multi-Country Oncology Studies

OBJECTIVES: Identify similarities and differences in cancer treatment preferences between the United States (US) and Europe.

METHODS: A targeted literature review was conducted using PubMed® to identify studies that were 1) related to oncology treatment attributes 2) reported quantitative preference estimates and 3) included respondents from both the US and at least one European country. Attributes, levels, and their associated preference weights were transformed into relative importance estimates and grouped into “benefits”, “risks”, “mode of administration” (MoA), and “other” for comparability. For studies evaluating either the US OR at least one European country, searches were conducted to identify companion studies in the grey literature using Ferma.AI.

RESULTS: Our search identified 707 manuscripts. Six manuscripts and one abstract published between 2017 and 2023 were included for data extraction. Two of the seven studies did not report results separately for US and European respondents. The remaining five studies included five European countries (UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain) and six cancer types (breast, acute myeloid leukemia, large B-cell lymphoma, hormone sensitive prostate cancer, muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma, and multiple myeloma). In four of the five studies, respondents in both regions ranked benefits above risks. Four studies included MoA with US respondents placing a greater importance on MoA than European respondents in two studies. Across regional subgroups, the relative importance of MoA was equal in two studies, and the rank of MoA was consistent in three studies. Although all five studies reported statistically significant preference differences between geographic subgroups, qualitative results were generally consistent across regions.

CONCLUSIONS: Trends in preferences for oncology patients were mostly similar across geographies. Any differences in the rank of attribute types were specific to each study. While conclusions are generally robust across geographic location, researchers should test for differences in preferences between subgroups based on country.