Electrochemotherapy is increasingly entering into national and international guidelines, requiring formal evaluation of treatment costs and cost-effectiveness to ensure that its uptake provides value ...to budget-constrained health care systems. This study analyzed the early cost-effectiveness of electrochemotherapy in patients with Stage IIIc/IV skin melanoma in clinical practice in Slovenia. The costs of electrochemotherapy were compared to those of the standard of care, consisting of palliative treatment and therapy for symptoms.
wThe study enrolled 23 patients treated with electrochemotherapy at the Institute of Oncology (Ljubljana, Slovenia). The mean cost of electrochemotherapy was estimated using patient-specific cost data on electrochemotherapy procedures and subsequent follow-up. Quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated by collecting EQ-5D-3L questionnaires at baseline, after complete or partial response following the treatment, and after a relapse of skin lesions. A discrete-time Markov model was built to estimate the lifetime costs and consequences of using electrochemotherapy compared to standard of care, from the perspective of the Slovenian health care system. The analysis was conducted separately in the whole patient sample and in the subset of patients with bleeding lesions. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to test model assumptions and to characterize the uncertainty around model parameters.
In the whole patient population, electrochemotherapy for skin melanoma Stage IIIc/IV was expected to increase QALYs by 0.29 (95% credible interval CrI, 0.10–0.50), at the higher cost of 6568 EUR (95% CrI, 4593–8928) in comparison to the standard of care. At the cost-effectiveness threshold of 20,000 EUR/QALY, the estimated probabilities of electrochemotherapy being cost-effective compared to standard of care were 0.30 and 0.91 in the whole patient sample and in patients with bleeding lesions, respectively. In the whole sample population, a 50% reduction in the price of the electrodes was expected to increase the probability of electrochemotherapy being cost-effective from 0.30 to ~0.64.
The findings from this cost-effectiveness analysis of data from clinical practice were based on a small sample size (ie, 23 patents), which made the subgroup of patients with bleeding lesions very small. Therefore, the findings in this patient population should be carefully interpreted.
•With the development of the electroporation and new delivery systems, questions regarding cost-effectiveness needs to be addressed.•The average cost of single electrochemotherapy procedure was estimated to €2757.00 with the standard deviation €707.30.•Electrochemotherapy is slightly less cost-effective compared to standard of care, but the uncertainty over this estimate is large.•The probability of electrochemotherapy being cost-effective is estimated to be 30% for the whole sample, and 91% in patients with bleeding lesions.•The cost of the electrodes has a considerable impact when considering the whole patient sample.
V tem prispevku bomo opisali pojav pri raku, ki ga po angleško imenujemo overdiagnosis. Za izraz še ni uradno sprejetega slovenskega prevoda, v tem prispevku pa bomo uporabili izraz ...prediagnosticiranje, ki označuje raka, ki ne bi povzročil simptomov ali smrti, če ne bi bil diagnosticiran. Za to sta potrebna 2 pogoja: obstoj večje baze subkliničnega raka in aktivno odkrivanje te baze, presejanje. Ocena prediagnosticiranja pri presejanju je znana iz randomiziranih študij: 25 % za raka dojk, 50 % za pljučnega raka in več kot 60 % za raka prostate. Retrospektivne študije in populacijska statistika kažejo na prediagnosticiranje pri nevroblastomu, ščitničnem raku, raku ledvic in melanomu. Zato je treba bolnike seznaniti z velikostjo problema in možnostmi negativnih učinkov zdravljenja bolezni, ki jih morda ne bi nikoli prizadela. Pogostost prediagnosticiranja bi bilo treba bolje oceniti in odkriti metode, s katerimi bi ta problem zmanjšali.
Electrochemotherapy is a local treatment for skin tumors and also deep seated tumors and metastases. Electrochemotherapy is based on enhanced cytotoxic effectiveness of bleomycin or cisplatin by ...electroporation, which increases drug delivery into cells in tumors. Electrochemotherapy is an ablative technique of high effectiveness with over 80% objective responses of electrochemotherapy treated tumors. Its advantage is the simplicity of the procedure that can be utilized in treatment of different tumor histiotypes. Currently it is predominantly used in palliative intent when the other treatment options have been exhausted. For the translation of electrochemotherapy into the clinics also the technological development that is now focusing into the treatment of deep-seated tumors was important. In Slovenia we are at the forefront in the treatment of liver tumors and head and neck tumors, while the others are developing electrochemotherapy for treatment of bone and brain metastases as well as endoluminal tumors.
Elektrokemoterapija melanoma Gregor Serša; Maja Čemažar; Nebojša Glumac ...
Onkologija,
12/2013, Letnik:
17, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Elektrokemoterapija je način zdravljenja raka, ki združuje uporabo standardnih kemoterapevtikov in aplikacijo električnih pulzov na območje tumorja. S tem se večkrat poveča učinkovitost bleomicina ...ali cisplatina samo na področju dovedenih električnih pulzov. Elektrokemoterapija je sedaj v Evropi uveljavljen način zdravljenja različnih kožnih tumorjev, predvsem pa se je uveljavila pri zdravljenju kožnih in podkožnih zasevkov melanoma. Njena učinkovitost je okrog 80 % objektivnih odgovorov in okrog 60 % popolnih odgovorov po enkratni terapiji, z možnostjo izboljšanja odgovora ob ponavljajoči se terapiji. Elektrokemoterapijo uporabljamo predvsem pri zdravljenju kožnih, podkožnih in tranzit zasevkov melanoma ter krvavečih tumorjev in zasevkov v predhodno tretiranih področjih.
Electrochemotherapy is a local treatment for skin tumors and also deep seated tumors and metastases. Electrochemotherapy is based on enhanced cytotoxic effectiveness of bleomycin or cisplatin by ...electroporation, which increases drug delivery into cells in tumors. Electrochemotherapy is an ablative technique of high effectiveness with over 80% objective responses of electrochemotherapy treated tumors. Its advantage is the simplicity of the procedure that can be utilized in treatment of different tumor histiotypes. Currently it is predominantly used in palliative intent when the other treatment options have been exhausted. For the translation of electrochemotherapy into the clinics also the technological development that is now focusing into the treatment of deep-seated tumors was important. In Slovenia we are at the forefront in the treatment of liver tumors and head and neck tumors, while the others are developing electrochemotherapy for treatment of bone and brain metastases as well as endoluminal tumors.
Electrochemotherapy is a local treatment for skin tumors and also deep seated tumors and metastases. Electrochemotherapy is based on enhanced cytotoxic effectiveness of bleomycin or cisplatin by ...electroporation, which increases drug delivery into cells in tumors. Electrochemotherapy is an ablative technique of high effectiveness with over 80% objective responses of electrochemotherapy treated tumors. Its advantage is the simplicity of the procedure that can be utilized in treatment of different tumor histiotypes. Currently it is predominantly used in palliative intent when the other treatment options have been exhausted. For the translation of electrochemotherapy into the clinics also the technological development that is now focusing into the treatment of deep-seated tumors was important. In Slovenia we are at the forefront in the treatment of liver tumors and head and neck tumors, while the others are developing electrochemotherapy for treatment of bone and brain metastases as well as endoluminal tumors.
The aim of the study was to determine whether the presence of inguinal sentinel lymph node (SLN) metastases smaller than 2 mm (micrometastases) subdivided according to the number of micrometastases ...predicts additional, non-sentinel inguinal, iliac or obturator lymph node involvement in completion lymph node dissection (CLND). PATIENTS AND METHODS.: Positive inguinal SLN was detected in 58 patients (32 female, 26 male, median age 55 years) from 743 consecutive and prospectively enrolled patients with primary cutaneous melanoma stage I and II who were treated with SLN biopsy between 2001 and 2007.
Micrometastases in inguinal SLN were detected in 32 patients, 14 were single, 2 were double, and 16 were multiple. Twenty-six patients had macrometastases.
No patient with any micrometastases or a single SLN macrometastasis in the inguinal region had any iliac/obturator non-sentinel metastases after CLND in our series. Furthermore, no patient with single SLN micrometastasis in the inguinal region had any non-sentinel metastases at all after CLND in our series. In these cases respective CLND might be omitted.
A dysregulated and overwhelming response to an infection accompanied by the exaggerated pro-inflammatory state and metabolism disturbance leads to the fatal outcome in sepsis. Previously we showed ...that meldonium, an anti-ischemic drug clinically used to treat myocardial and cerebral ischemia, strongly increases mortality in faecal-induced peritonitis (FIP) in rats. We postulated that the same mechanism that is responsible for the otherwise strong anti-inflammatory effects of meldonium could be the culprit of the increased mortality. In the present study, we applied the LPS-induced model of sepsis to explore the presence of any differences from and/or similarities to the FIP model. When it comes to energy production, despite some shared similarities, it is evident that LPS and FIP models of sepsis differ greatly. A different profile of sympathoadrenal activation may account for this observation, as it was lacking in the FIP model, whereas in the LPS model it was strong enough to overcome the effects of meldonium. Therefore, choosing the appropriate model of sepsis induction is of great importance, especially if energy homeostasis is the main focus of the study. Even when differences in the experimental design of the two models are acknowledged, the role of different patterns of energy production cannot be excluded. On that account, our results draw attention to the importance of uninterrupted energy production in sepsis but also call for much-needed revisions of the current recommendations for its treatment.
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