Cost Effectiveness of Pharmacological Treatments for Asthma: A Systematic Review

The objective of this article was to summarize the findings of all the available studies on alternative pharmacological treatments for asthma and assess their methodological quality, as well as to identify the main drivers of the cost effectiveness of pharmacological treatments for the disease.

A systematic review of the literature in seven electronic databases was conducted in order to identify all the available health economic evidence on alternative pharmacological treatments for asthma published up to April 2017. The reporting quality of the included studies was assessed using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement.

A total of 72 studies were included in the review, classified as follows: medications for acute asthma treatment (n = 5, 6.9%); inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) administered alone or in conjunction with long-acting β-agonists (LABA) or tiotropium for chronic asthma treatment (n = 38, 52.8%); direct comparisons between different combinations of ICS, ICS/LABA, leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRA), and sodium cromoglycate for chronic asthma treatment (n = 14, 19.4%); and omalizumab for chronic asthma treatment (n = 15, 20.8%). ICS were reported to be cost effective when compared with LTRA for the management of persistent asthma. In patients with inadequately controlled asthma taking ICS, the addition of long-acting β-agonist (LABA) preparations has been demonstrated to be cost effective, especially when combinations of ICS/LABA containing formoterol are used for both maintenance and reliever therapy. In patients with uncontrolled severe persistent allergic asthma, omalizumab therapy could be cost effective in a carefully selected subgroup of patients with the more severe forms of the disease. The quality of reporting in the studies, according to the CHEERS checklist, was very uneven. The main cost-effectiveness drivers identified were the cost or rate of asthma exacerbations, the cost or rate of the use of asthma medications, the asthma mortality risk, and the rate of utilization of health services for asthma.

The present findings are in line with the pharmacological recommendations for stepwise management of asthma given in the most recent evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for the disease. The identified reporting quality of the available health economic evidence is useful for identifying aspects where there is room for improvement in future asthma cost-effectiveness studies.