Economic evaluation of trimetazidine in the management of chronic stable angina in Greece

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of trimetazidine (TMZ) as add-on therapy to standard-of-care (SoC) compared to SoC alone in patients with chronic stable angina who did not respond adequately to first line therapy with b-blockers, nitrates or calcium channel antagonists in Greece. METHODS: A Markov model with 3-month cycles and 1-year time horizon was developed to assess the comparators. The analysis was conducted from a third-party payer perspective. The clinical inputs and utility values were extracted from the published literature. Resource consumption data were obtained from local experts, using a questionnaire developed for the purpose of the study and were combined with unit cost data (in €2016) obtained from official sources. Cost effectiveness was assessed by calculating the incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER). Probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) was performed to account for uncertainty and variation in the input parameters of the model. RESULTS: The analysis showed that the cost of TMZ plus SoC was €1755.57 versus €1751.76 of SoC alone. In terms of health outcomes, TMZ plus SoC was associated with 0.6650 QALYs versus 0.6562 QALYs for SoC alone. The incremental analysis resulted in an ICER of €430.67 per QALY gained. PSA revealed that the probability of TMZ plus SoC being cost-effective over SoC was 89 %, at a threshold of €34,000 per QALY gained. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that TMZ as add –on treatment may be a highly cost-effective option for the symptomatic treatment of patients with chronic stable angina in Greece relative to SoC alone. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1779-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.