Health Utility Book (HUB)–Cancer: Protocol for a Systematic Literature Review of Health State Utility Values in Cancer

Abstract

Background. Treatment options in oncology are rapidly advancing, and public payer systems are increasingly under pressure to adopt new but expensive cancer treatments. Cost-utility analyses (CUAs) are used to estimate the relative costs and effects of competing interventions, where health outcomes are measured using quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Health state utility values (HSUVs) are used to reflect health-related quality of life or health status in the calculation of QALYs. To support reimbursement agencies in the appraisal of oncology drug submissions, which typically include a CUA component, we have proposed a systematic literature review of published HSUV estimates in the field of oncology. Methods. The following databases will be searched: MEDLINE, EMBASE, EconLit, and CINAHL. A team of reviewers, working independently and in duplicate, will evaluate abstracts and full-text publications for eligibility against broad inclusion criteria. Studies using a direct, indirect, or combination approach to eliciting preferences related to cancer or cancer treatments are eligible. Data extraction will capture details of study methodology, participants, health states, and corresponding HSUVs. We will summarize our findings with descriptive analyses at this stage. A pilot review in thyroid cancer is presented to illustrate the proposed methods. Discussion. This systematic review will generate a comprehensive summary of the oncology HSUV literature. As a component of the Health Utility Book (HUB) project, we anticipate that this work will assist both health economic modelers as well as critical reviewers in the development and appraisal of CUAs in oncology.

A Systematic Literature Review of Health Utility Values in Breast Cancer

“…Once concluded, the HUB will consist of a registry of published health utility values and a quality assessment tool for health utility studies. 41 , 42 We believe that the HUB project will fill an important gap in the literature and improve the credibility of health utility studies in the HTA submission process. Finally, for the meta-regression analysis by breast cancer stage, the results should be interpreted with caution, as the model included only a handful of studies for early-stage breast cancer ( n = 3) as compared with 18 and 33 studies in advanced and nonspecific breast cancer, respectively.…”

Toward a Centralized, Systematic Approach to the Identification, Appraisal, and Use of Health State Utility Values for Reimbursement Decision Making: Introducing the Health Utility Book (HUB)

“…The bibliographic databases include MEDLINE, EMBASE, EconLit, and CINAHL. For details, please refer to Zoratti et al 47 At present, this registry is designed to gather and describe published HSUVs. Given that HSUVs are often derived through different methodologies, we will decide whether or not to pool the HSUVs depending on the level of heterogeneity.…”

“…We recognize that the registry is a huge undertaking and requires long-term commitments and collective efforts. For feasibility, the construction of the registry starts with compiling HSUVs for cancer (see Zoratti et al 47 ).…”