Presentation (CTI)

OBJECTIVES: To develop a systematic review to analyse the methodology, sources and main costs associated with drug-related adverse events (AEs) considered in economic evaluations (EEs) performed from the Spanish Healthcare System (NHS) perspective in the last 10 years.
METHODS: A systematic review was conducted through PubMed database to identify EEs including AE costs. Thus, a systematic search strategy was designed and applied to PubMed, then exclusion and inclusion criteria were defined. Two independent reviewers analysed titles, abstracts, and full text, to identify eligible studies. A data extraction from selected studies was performed using an Excel template. Extracted data included: type of evaluation, study characteristics (therapeutic area, clinical indication), methodology utilized to estimate AE costs, sources consulted, AE inclusion criteria (severity, incidence), AEs reported and their estimated cost. An analysis of the methodology and sources applied for the estimation of AE costs based on the type of the evaluation performed and the clinical area was carried out. Additionally, an estimation of the mean costs associated with the most reported AEs was developed.
RESULTS: The initial search yielded 187 EEs published in Spain in the last 10 years. 22% of them included an estimation of AE costs and were deemed for data extraction. It should be noted that AE inclusion was heterogeneous in terms of detail provided, methodology considered, and sources consulted. Regarding the EEs including AE costs, 24% were developed for infectious diseases, 20% for cardiology, and 15% for oncology. The main sources consulted were previous publications (20%), cost database (15%), NHS (5%), Autonomous Communities (5%) and the mix of at least two of them (54%).
CONCLUSIONS: During the last 10 years in Spain only 22% of the EEs identified included AE costs. The methodology applied for their inclusion was diverse, but 54% of them reported consulting multiple sources in their search for AE-associated costs.