-
Support Care Cancer · Jul 2004
Comparative StudyCost-minimization analysis of low-molecular-weight heparin (dalteparin) compared to unfractionated heparin for inpatient treatment of cancer patients with deep venous thrombosis.
- Elenir B C Avritscher, Scott B Cantor, Ya-Chen T Shih, Carmelita P Escalante, Edgardo Rivera, and Elting Linda S LS.
- Section of Health Services Research, Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard-Unit 196, Houston, TX 77030-4009, USA. ecaramel@mdanderson.org
- Support Care Cancer. 2004 Jul 1; 12 (7): 531-6.
GoalsLow-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) has shown to be as effective as unfractionated heparin (UFH) in the treatment of deep venous thrombosis (DVT). Although the acquisition cost of LMWH is significantly greater than that of UFH, we hypothesized that once-daily dalteparin, a LMWH, could reduce treatment costs of cancer patients with DVT by eliminating anticoagulation monitoring and shortening hospitalization.Patients And MethodsWe developed a cost-minimization model by using outcomes and resource utilization data from two retrospective matched cohorts of cancer patients who, between 1994 and 1999, were hospitalized at our comprehensive cancer center for treatment of DVT with either LMWH ( n=21) or UFH ( n=168). We assumed all LMWHs and UFH to be equally effective. The total costs for the dalteparin strategy and the UFH strategy were calculated in year 2003 U.S. dollars, from the provider's perspective, by multiplying the number of resources used for inpatient treatment of DVT by their unit costs.ResultsThe mean total cost for inpatient care was $3,383 US dollars (95% CI= $2,683- $4,083) for dalteparin and $4,952 US dollars (95% CI=$4,718-$5,185) for UFH. Substantial savings resulted from shorter hospitalization among the dalteparin-treated patients (mean 3.19 versus 5.22 days). Sensitivity analysis did not change the conclusion that dalteparin is less expensive than UFH.ConclusionsSavings realized from less anticoagulant monitoring and shorter hospitalization offset the higher acquisition cost of dalteparin. The dalteparin strategy is less expensive than the UFH strategy for the inpatient treatment of DVT among cancer patients.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.