Abstract
BACKGROUND: Allergic rhinitis is a global health problem that burdens society due to associated health care costs and its impact on health. Standardized quality (SQ(®)) house dust mite (HDM) sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT)-tablet is a sublingually administered allergy immunotherapy tablet for patients with persistent moderate to severe HDM allergic rhinitis despite use of allergy pharmacotherapy. OBJECTIVE: To assess the cost-effectiveness of SQ HDM SLIT-tablet in Germany for patients suffering from HDM allergic rhinitis. METHODS: A pharmacoeconomic analysis, based on data collected in a double-blinded, phase III randomized placebo-controlled trial (n=992), was undertaken to compare SQ HDM SLIT-tablet in addition to allergy pharmacotherapy to placebo plus allergy pharmacotherapy. Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) scores and health care resource use data recorded in the trial were applied to each treatment group and extrapolated over a nine-year time horizon. A series of scenarios were used to investigate the impact of changes on long-term patient health for both treatment groups, which was measured by annual changes in QALY scores. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were also performed. RESULTS: In the base case analysis, compared with allergy pharmacotherapy, SQ HDM SLIT-tablet led to a QALY gain of 0.31 at an incremental cost of €2,276 over the nine-year time horizon, equating to an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of €7,519. The treatment was cost-effective for all scenarios analyzed; however, results were sensitive to changes in individual parameter values during the deterministic sensitivity analysis. CONCLUSION: SQ HDM SLIT-tablet in addition to pharmacotherapy is cost-effective compared with allergy pharmacotherapy plus placebo for the treatment of persistent moderate to severe HDM allergic rhinitis that is not well controlled by allergy pharmacotherapy.