UC Davis

Background

The choice of antiplatelet therapy after acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is complicated: Ticagrelor and prasugrel are novel alternatives to clopidogrel, patients with some genotypes may not respond to clopidogrel, and low-cost generic formulations of clopidogrel are available.

Objective

To determine the most cost-effective strategy for dual antiplatelet therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention for ACS.

Design

Decision-analytic model.

Data sources

Published literature, Medicare claims, and life tables.

Target population

Patients having percutaneous coronary intervention for ACS.

Time horizon

Lifetime.

Perspective

Societal.

Intervention

Five strategies were examined: generic clopidogrel, prasugrel, ticagrelor, and genotyping for polymorphisms of CYP2C19 with carriers of loss-of-function alleles receiving either ticagrelor (genotyping with ticagrelor) or prasugrel (genotyping with prasugrel) and noncarriers receiving clopidogrel.

Outcome measures

Direct medical costs, quality-adjusted life years(QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs).

Results of base-case analysis

The clopidogrel strategy produced$179 301 in costs and 9.428 QALYs. Genotyping with prasugrel was superior to prasugrel alone, with an ICER of $35 800 per QALY relative to clopidogrel. Genotyping with ticagrelor was more effective than genotyping with prasugrel ($30 200 per QALY relative to clopidogrel). Ticagrelor was the most effective strategy($52 600 per QALY relative to genotyping with ticagrelor).

Results of sensitivity analysis

Stronger associations between genotype and thrombotic outcomes rendered ticagrelor substantially less cost-effective ($104 800 per QALY). Genotyping with prasugrel was the preferred therapy among patients who could not tolerate ticagrelor.

Limitation

No randomized trials have directly compared genotyping strategies or prasugrel with ticagrelor.

Conclusion

Genotype-guided personalization may improve the cost-effectiveness of prasugrel and ticagrelor after percutaneous coronary intervention for ACS, but ticagrelor for all patients may bean economically reasonable alternative in some settings.