Abstract
Background: Esophageal cancer has a poor prognosis and currently ranks sixth in global cancer mortality rates. The ORIENT-15 trial showed sintilimab plus chemotherapy significantly improved survival when compared to chemotherapy alone. This study aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of sintilimab, a programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor, plus chemotherapy in treating patients with esophageal cancer compared with chemotherapy alone. Methods: A Markov model with a 10-year horizon was developed based on the perspective of the Chinese healthcare payers. We conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis for sintilimab combined with chemotherapy based on a questionnaire. Patients were grouped into the sintilimab group based on a positive score of 10 or more (combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 10 groups), and those with any other PD-L1 expression were randomized into patient groups. We estimated the cost and the effectiveness of sintilimab on the quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was computed. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore the impact of uncertainties on the cost-effectiveness results. Results: In the base-case analysis, compared with chemotherapy alone, the ICER of sintilimab plus chemotherapy for all patients was $21024.05 per QALY, and in the CPS≥10 group, it was $20974.23 per QALY. This was lower than $37653 per QALY. One-way sensitivity analysis demonstrated that ICERs were most sensitive to the price of sintilimab. Conclusion: The study demonstrated that sintilimab plus chemotherapy for advanced esophageal cancer as its first-line treatment would be more cost-effective than chemotherapy alone in Chinese patients.