Introduction: The present evaluation was restricted to pivotal phase III randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in first-line for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Materials and methods: We calculated the pharmacological costs necessary to get the benefit in overall survival (OS), for each trial.
Results: Our analysis evaluated 10 phase III RCTs, including 9485 patients. The most relevant increase of cost € per month of OS-gain was associated with bevacizumab (66,720 €) and the lowest with the use of pembrolizumab (2734 €).
Conclusion: Combining pharmacological costs of drugs with the measure of efficacy represented by OS, pembrolizumab is a cost-effective first-line treatment for patients with metastatic NSCLC.