Economic evaluation of lenograstim (glycosylated rHuG-CSF) in the treatment of inflammatory breast cancer for Germany and Italy

Data from a French placebo-controlled double-blind trial in 120 female patients treated with high dose fluorouracil, epirubicin and cyclophosphamide (HD-FEC) chemotherapy for inflammatory breast cancer were used to assess the economic impact of adjunctive lenograstim therapy. The analysis compared direct costs of treatment, with or without lenograstim, with reference to the Social Security (Germany) or to the National Health Service (Italy). Resource utilisation differed between the 2 treatment groups. The lenograstim group reported 32% fewer antibiotic therapy days (9.8 days vs 14.6; p = 0.01) and 24% fewer inpatient days for any reason other than chemotherapy (7.4 'excess' days vs 9.8). By reducing infection-related morbidity associated with a high dose chemotherapy regimen, lenograstim decreased treatment costs by DM 1794 and ItL 1.2 million, excluding the cost of lenograstim itself. Since lenograstim patients reported fewer chemotherapy delays (16.4 vs 30.5%) and, hence, benefited from 1.2 (p = 0.04) more chemotherapy days, the related cost was DM 1519 and ItL 0.9 million higher than for the placebo group. This cost difference would be expected to be smaller if the placebo group patients had been followed until completion of their full chemotherapy regimen. Assuming that the costs of chemotherapy were the same for both groups, the direct cost saving for the lenograstim group would be 30% in Germany and 34% in Italy.