Cost-Effectiveness of Cardioverter-Defibrillator Implantation in Kazakhstan

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The implementation of effective technologies such as Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) for patients at risk of sudden cardiac death requires additional health system resources.

To assess the economic effectiveness of ICD in comparison with conservative tactics for preventing life-threatening rhythm disturbances in Kazakhstan.

A Markov model was built with a time horizon of 35 years. Mortality and utility data were obtained from the available literature. The economic parameters of the model are based on the approved tariffs for medical services in Kazakhstan and clinical protocols. Following WHO recommendations, a willingness to pay threshold of three times gross domestic product per capita was used to assess cost-effectiveness. A discount rate of 3.5% was applied to both costs and benefits. To deal with parameter uncertainties and to provide robust analysis, a probabilistic sensitivity analysis was performed, randomly varying all inputs subject to uncertainty assuming a statistical distribution.

The total costs in the primary prevention (PP) group by ICD implantation and in the control group were 8,903,786 tenges and 3,194,414 tenges, respectively. The discounted total quality-adjusted life-years saved (QALYs) in the ICD and control groups were 6.48 and 4.98, respectively. The indicator of incremental cost-effectiveness ratio amounted to3791604 tenge, which is below the willingness to pay threshold and indicates the cost-effectiveness of using ICD as a PP strategy in patients with sudden cardiac death risk factors in the health care of Kazakhstan.

The ICD for the primary prevention of the development of life-threatening rhythm disturbances and sudden cardiac death is a cost-effective health technology from the position of a payer in the health care system of Kazakhstan.