Cost-effectiveness of Alzheimer's disease CSF biomarkers and amyloid-PET in early-onset cognitive impairment diagnosis

This study aimed at determining the cost-effectiveness of amyloid-positron emission tomography (PET) compared to Alzheimer's disease (AD) cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers (amyloid-beta(42), total-Tau and phosphorylated-Tau) for the diagnosis of AD in patients with early-onset cognitive impairment. A decision tree model using a national health care perspective was developed to compare the costs and effectiveness associated with Amyloid-PET and AD CSF biomarkers. Available evidence from the literature and primary data from Hospital Clinic de Barcelona were used to inform the model and calculate the efficiency of these diagnostic alternatives. Medical visits and diagnostic procedures were considered and reported in euro2020. We calculated the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio to measure the cost per % of correct diagnoses detected and we perform one-way deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses to assess the uncertainty of these results. Compared with AD CSF biomarkers, Amyloid-PET resulted in 7.40% more correctly diagnosed cases of AD, with an incremental total mean cost of euro146,854.80 per 100 cases. We found a 50% of probability that Amyloid-PET was cost-effective for a willingness to pay (WTP) of euro19,840.39 per correct case detected. Using a WTP of euro75,000, the probability that it is cost-effective reached a maximum of 76.9%, thus leading to a conclusion that Amyloid-PET is not a cost-effective technique compared to AD CSF biomarkers, unless the funder is willing to pay a minimum of euro19,840.39 to detect one more correct case. Furthermore, obtaining CSF provides simultaneous information on amyloid beta and tau biomarkers and allows other biomarkers to be analyzed at a relatively low cost.

Automated summary

This study compares the cost-effectiveness of amyloid-positron emission tomography (PET) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers for the diagnosis of AD in patients with early-onset cognitive impairment. The findings suggest that Amyloid-PET can provide more accurate diagnoses of AD compared to AD CSF biomarkers, but it is not cost-effective unless the funder is willing to pay a certain amount.