Cost-effectiveness of anticoagulants for preventing stroke in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation in mainland China

What is known and objective With the high cost, the long-term persistence of new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) was lower than that of warfarin in Chinese patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) for a long time. The prices of NOACs (apixaban, rivaroxaban and dabigatran) decreased significantly over the past year in mainland China. The objective of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of NOACs versus warfarin for preventing stroke in patients with NVAF from a Chinese healthcare system perspective. Methods A decision tree and Markov model were used to assess the treatment strategies of four NOACs versus warfarin over a lifetime horizon. For each treatment strategy, the total lifetime cost, quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) were calculated. The impact of parameter uncertainties on base-case analysis results was evaluated using sensitivity analyses. Results and discussion In the base-case analysis, compared with warfarin, apixaban had a decreased total lifetime cost of USD 389 and rivaroxaban of USD 1482, while low-dose dabigatran had an increased total lifetime cost of USD 925 and high-dose dabigatran of USD 6641, with QALY increasing by 0.53, 1.32, 0.92 and 1.83, respectively. The ICER of low-dose dabigatran versus warfarin was USD 1005 per QALY gain, while those of apixaban (-USD 734 per QALY gain) and rivaroxaban (-USD 1123 per QALY gain) were negative. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses indicated that the base-case results were robust by applying certain varying parameters to the model. What is new and conclusion These four NOAC (apixaban, rivaroxaban, low-dose dabigatran and high-dose dabigatran) treatment strategies were cost-effective compared with warfarin and recommended as substitutes for warfarin treatment for preventing stroke in patients with NVAF in the healthcare system of China, which might be driven by large drug price reductions in the past year.