A comprehensive review of economic and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) evidence in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) reveals the substantial burden associated with the disease and the critical unmet need for more effective treatments with improved outcomes (Pharmacoecon Open. 2020. doi:10.1007/s41669-020-00231-w).
“[MCL] is a rare and aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. While treatment of patients with MCL and their outcomes are previously published, the availability of heath economics evidence is unclear,” wrote Neerav Monga, Global Market Access and Health Policy, Janssen Global Oncology, Toronto, Canada, and colleagues.
Monga and colleagues conducted a comprehensive review of studies relating to economic costs and resource use, and HRQoL in patients with MCL.
The MEDLINE, Embase, NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED), and EconLit databases were searched for studies published between 2007 and 2018. Additionally, congress abstract presented between 2015 and 2016 were included.
Overall, 11 economic evaluations, 7 studies reporting cost or recourse utilization data, and 5 studies relating to HRQoL were identified.
Of the economic evaluations, 4 presented results for patients with MCL modelled in the first-line setting, while 7 modelled patients in the relapsed/refractory setting. The majority of economic evaluations were conducted using a Markov model with 3 to 5 health states.
Adverse events were reported as key drivers of increased costs and resource use in 7 studies assessing resource utilization.
Across the 5 studies reporting HRQoL, disparate measures were used. Improvement in Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lymphoma total scores following treatment were reported in 2 studies and clinical response to treatment was shown to be associated with improvement in overall HRQoL.
“The published economic and HRQoL evidence in MCL, although scarce, reveals that the economic and HRQoL burden associated with MCL is substantial,” Monga and colleagues concluded.
“In highlighting this evidence, this analysis underlines a critical unmet need for more effective treatments with improved outcomes in MCL,” they added.—Janelle Bradley
