Cost-effectiveness of Implementing Smoking Cessation Interventions for Patients With Cancer

IMPORTANCE: Guidelines recommend cancer care clinicians offer smoking cessation treatment. Cost analyses will help stakeholders understand and plan for implementation of cessation programs. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the incremental cost per quit (ICQ) of adopting an intensive smoking cessation intervention among patients undergoing treatment at cancer care clinics, from a clinic perspective. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This economic evaluation, a secondary analysis of the Smokefree Support Study (conducted 2013-2018; completed 2021), used microcosting methods and sensitivity analyses to estimate the ICQ of the interventions. Participants included patients undergoing treatment for a broad range of solid tumors and lymphomas who reported current smoking and were receiving care at cancer care clinics within 2 academic medical centers. EXPOSURES: Intensive smoking cessation treatment (up to 11 counseling sessions with free medications), standard of care (up to 4 counseling sessions with medication advice), or usual care (referral to the state quitline). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Total costs, component-specific costs, and the ICQ of the intensive smoking cessation treatment relative to both standard of care (comparator in the parent randomized trial) and usual care (a common comparator outside this trial) were calculated. Overall and post hoc site-specific estimates are provided. Because usual care was not included in the parent trial, sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess how assumptions about usual care quit rates affected study outcomes (ie, base case [from a published smoking cessation trial among patients with thoracic cancer], best case, and conservative case scenarios). RESULTS: The per-patient costs of offering intensive smoking cessation treatment, standard of care, and usual care were $1989, $1482, and $0, respectively. For intensive treatment, the dominant costs were treatment (35%), staff supervision (26%), and patient enrollment (24%). Relative to standard of care, intensive treatment had an overall ICQ of $3906, and one site had an ICQ of $2892. Relative to usual care, intensive treatment had an ICQ of $9866 overall (base case), although at one site, the ICQ was $5408 (base case) and $3786 (best case). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this economic evaluation study, implementation of an intensive smoking cessation treatment intervention was moderately to highly cost-effective, depending on existing smoking cessation services in place.