Bottom-up or top-down: unit cost estimation of tuberculosis diagnostic tests in India

Of 18 sites that participated in an implementation study of the Xpert® MTB/RIF assay in India, we selected five microscopy centres and two reference laboratories.

To obtain unit costs of diagnostic tests for tuberculosis (TB) and drug-resistant TB.

Laboratories were purposely selected to capture regional variations and different laboratory types. Both bottom-up and the top-down methods were used to estimate unit costs.

At the microscopy centres, mean bottom-up unit costs were respectively US$0.83 (range US$0.60-US$1.10) and US$12.29 (US$11.61-US$12.89) for sputum smear microscopy and Xpert. At the reference laboratories, mean unit costs were US$1.69 for the decontamination procedure, US$9.83 for a solid culture, US$11.06 for a liquid culture, US$29.88 for a drug susceptibility test, and US$18.18 for a line-probe assay. Top-down mean unit cost estimates were higher for all tests, and for sputum smear microscopy and Xpert these increased to respectively US$1.51 and US$13.58. The difference between bottom-up and top-down estimates was greatest for tests performed at the reference laboratories.

These unit costs for TB diagnostics can be used to estimate resource requirements and cost-effectiveness in India, taking into account geographical location, laboratory type and capacity utilisation.