Cost-utility of treatment of the patients with Thalassemia Major in Iran

  Thalassemia major is an autosomal recessive disease with serious morbidity, mortality and pathology. Due to today’s therapeutic advances, the life expectancy of thalassemia patients has significantly increased. As a result, thalassemia patients need lifelong care, but caring for patients with thalassemia causes a lot of costs. Therefore, being aware of the costs and effectiveness of the treatments is essential for controlling the costs and providing effective treatments.

In this cross-sectional descriptive study, a bottom-up method was used to estimate the treatment costs for thalassemia patients and all the costs were estimated over a one-year period (2015). The number of QALYs created by treatment was also extracted using the EQ5D questionnaire, and eventually, the Markov model was used to calculate the costs and effectiveness for patients’ longevity.

Treatment for any patients with thalassemia major costs $ 8,321.8 per year. Applying a 3% discount rate, we estimated that each patient lifelong treatment costs $ 147,098.4, which would results in 11.8 QALYs. Hence, the cost per QALY would be $ 12,466,0.

Treating the patients with thalassemia major, despite its cost effectiveness, might cost a lot so that the treatment of the patients in the fourth decade of their lives may even reach the cost-effectiveness threshold. Therefore, increasing the costs in the field of patient screening and prevention of the birth of patients with thalassemia major seems to be useful.