OBJECTIVES: To quantitate the disease burden of anal carcinoma (AC) in Chinese male patients under current care.

METHODS: A disease burden model was constructed to simulate the lifetime health outcomes and direct medical costs of Chinese patients with AC and the age-matched Chinese general male population. Markov model was used to simulate the disease progression of AC in Chinese male patients under current care. A systemic literature search was conducted to identify appropriate evidence for estimating model inputs. The constructed disease burden model was used to conduct base case analysis, one-way sensitivity analysis (OWSA), and probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) for the disease burden outcomes measured by the differences in life expectancy, quality-adjusted life years (QALY), and lifetime direct medical costs between the Chinese male patients with AC and the matched general male population.

RESULTS: The AC model cohort had an mean age of 52.0 years, with 8.2% diagnosed at tumor stage IV. Relative to the matched cohort, the Chinese male patients with AC were associated with reduced 6.1 life years (19.2 years vs. 25.2 years), reduced 12.7 QALY (10.5 QALY vs. 23.3 QALY), and increased ¥99,699 for lifetime direct medical costs (¥241,039 vs. ¥141,340). The disease burden of AC in Chinese male patients was mainly driven by age at diagnosis, quality of life after radical surgery, and treatment outcomes of current care. The PSA confirmed the measured disease burden outcomes from base case analysis with limited 95% creditable interval (CI) [reduced life years: median 6.0, 95% CI 5.2 to 7.1; reduced QALY: median 12.7, 95% CI 9.2 to 16.3; increased lifetime direct medical costs: median ¥100,396, 95% CI ¥89,514 to ¥126,009].

CONCLUSIONS: Likely due to the reduced quality of life after radical surgery for AC, Chinese male patients with AC have a much heavy disease burden regarding the lost QALY.