Purpose: The objective of the present study was to evaluate the efficiency of lorlatinib compared to alectinib and brigatinib for the treatment of adult patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously not treated, in Spain.
Methods: A partitioned survival model comprised progression free, non-intracranial progression, intracranial progression, and death health states was constructed to estimate the total costs, life-years gained (LYG) and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) accumulated in a lifetime horizon. Overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for lorlatinib were obtained from the CROWN study. For alectinib and brigatinib, a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was conducted to estimate OS and PFS hazard ratios versus crizotinib. Utilities were estimated based on EQ-5D-5L data derived from the CROWN (lorlatinib), ALEX (alectinib) and ALTA-1L (brigatinib) studies. According to the Spanish National Health Service perspective the total costs (expressed in euros using a 2021 cost year) included drug acquisition and the administration's subsequent treatment, ALK+ advanced NSCLC management and adverse-event management, and palliative care. Unitary costs were obtained from local cost databases and literature. Costs, LYGs and QALYs were discounted at 3% annually. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were used to test the model's robustness.
Results: Lorlatinib provided higher health outcomes (+0.70 LYG/patient, +1.42 QALYs/patient) and lower costs (-€9239/patient) than alectinib. Lorlatinib yielded higher LYG (+1.74) and QALYs (+2.30) versus brigatinib but higher costs/patient (+€36,627), resulting in an incremental-cost-effectiveness-ratio of €15,912/QALY gained.
Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that lorlatinib may be a dominant treatment option versus alectinib. Considering a willingness-to-pay threshold of €25,000/QALY, lorlatinib may be an efficient option compared to brigatinib.
Keywords: ALK+; advanced non-small cell lung cancer; cost-effectiveness analysis; cost-utility analysis; lorlatinib.
© 2023 Presa et al.