Pharmacoeconomic analysis of hemophilia care in Romania

Abstract

Hemophilia, a congenital X linked disease, has the serious burden of bleeding, requiring life-long replacement with coagulation factors (CF). In the present day, there is a continuously improving treatment for this condition. Objective: Our observational, cross-sectional study aims at finding out whether a prophylactic replacement with CF is affordable from the point of view of its cost-effectiveness in our country. Material and methods: A cohort of 122 persons with Hemophilia were included in this patient-reported outcome survey, and they answered a questionnaire consisting of 56 items, focused on 4 domains—socio-demographic, medical, quality of health/life and cost/cost-effectiveness. Results and discussion: The markers for quality of health/life were correlated with the direct and indirect costs of care, comparing subgroup 1 of patients with prophylactic vs. subgroup 2 with on-demand replacement. Based on the incremental quality adjusted life years and the incremental costs, we calculated the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) proving that prophylaxis is more cost-effective than on-demand replacement on a long time basis. Conclusions: The ICER is a threshold recommending the reimbursement of costs for a life-long prophylactic replacement in our country.