Health Care Costs Among Renal Cancer Patients Using Pazopanib and Sunitinib

Publications that aim to assess the economics of different therapies are important because they complement clinical trial data and may aid in decision making. We therefore read with interest the study by Hansen et al. in the January 2015 issue of JMCP. This study compared  costs between pazopanib (PAZ) and sunitinib (SU) in the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).1 The authors assessed health care costs through assignment of costs from the Truven Health MarketScan Databases to the self-reported health care resource utilization (HCRU) data from the population studied in the phase III noninferiority clinical trial COMPARZ (Pazopanib versus sunitinib in metastatic renal cell carcinoma).2 We are writing to comment on the conclusions drawn from the results presented, the methodology used, and to request additional information and clarification on data presented.