Physicians' preferences for prescribing oral and intravenous anticancer drugs: a Discrete Choice Experiment

Although efficacy and tolerability are classical criteria for treatment choice, patient adherence and tariff issues related to novel oral anticancer drugs may also influence therapeutic decisions. We estimated the relative influence of efficacy, tolerability, expected adherence and route of administration of a chemotherapy treatment on 203 French physicians' preferences who participated in a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE), a quantitative method used to elicit preferences. From a questionnaire with six scenarii, respondents had to choose between two treatments which differed with respect to these four attributes. Scenarii were first presented in a curative setting then in a palliative setting. Efficacy, tolerability and expected adherence had two modalities (good versus moderate) and route of administration had three modalities (intravenous (€286-379/session), oral with the current tariff (€28/consultation), oral with a hypothetical tariff (€114)). Efficacy was the reference criterion in choosing a treatment whatever the therapeutic goal (β: 2.114, p<0.0001 in curative setting versus β: 1.063, p<0.0001 in palliative setting). The oral route of administration was important but only in a palliative setting (β: 0.612, p=0.035, and β: 0.506, p<0.0001 for the current and hypothetical tariff, respectively). Removing the efficacy attribute from logistic regression model, tolerability (β: 1.228, p=0.0001) and expected adherence (β: 1.223, p=0.0001) were influent in curative setting while the route of administration was still predominant in palliative setting (β: 0.431, p<0.0001). Results suggest that economic considerations as well as therapeutic efficacy play a significant role in choosing a treatment. Preference for oral chemotherapy with a hypothetical tariff for a patient support programme should be considered for the development of therapeutic education and healthcare coordination, currently not taken into account in the tariff of oral chemotherapy.