Therapies for Advanced Parkinson's Disease in Sweden: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Using Real-World Data

The Swedish Parkinson's Disease (PD) Registry provides rich data on cost and quality of life for patients receiving device-aided therapies (DATs) for Parkinson's disease in Sweden. This study sought to use this real-world evidence to determine the cost-effectiveness profile of specific DATs in Sweden.

We developed a state transition (Markov) model to represent disease progression over time and used published clinical data to represent short- and long-term disease outcomes. We used data from the Swedish PD Registry to assign costs and quality of life measures (utilities) to each health state and modelled total costs and outcomes over a 20-year time horizon. The four treatment groups modelled were: best medical therapy, deep brain stimulation, levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel, and continuous subcutaneous apomorphine infusion. We calculated results from both payer and societal perspectives.

The most cost-effective intervention was deep brain stimulation (DBS), which dominated all other interventions. Sensitivity analysis indicated that the key drivers of uncertainty were the transition probabilities between successive Hoehn and Yahr stages on each treatment. Results were consistent from both payer and societal perspectives.

DBS is a cost-effective use of resources in Sweden. However, uncertainty remains regarding long-term symptom control as well as quality of life within specific health states for all device-aided therapies, and further data are needed to fully validate the model projections and provide more insight into areas of future research.