Health Economic Publication Digest: Addressing Subgroup-Specific Treatment Effects to Avoid Inefficient Care: The Conflict Between Statistical and Health Economic Analyses

MTRC shares the most relevant and impactful publications in the field of market access and HEOR for medical technologies in Europe through its Health Economic Publications Digest.

In a recent publication, Saing et al. used a simulation study with a Sick-Sicker Markov model to explore how subgroup heterogeneity influences cost-effectiveness and reimbursement decisions. The authors compared three decision strategies: ignoring subgroup evidence, statistically testing for subgroup effects, and incorporating all available subgroup evidence. They found that statistically guided approaches frequently overlooked subgroup benefits unless trial sizes were very large, leading to inefficient reimbursement choices. The study concluded that cost-effectiveness analyses should integrate all available evidence on subgroup differences to optimize societal health benefits.

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