Grutters et al 2011
The oncologist · 2011 · Netherlands · Proton
The figures it reported
This study reports no incremental cost-effectiveness ratio. That is not an omission in our table: some evaluations report dominance, a cost per life-year, or a decision-analytic result instead, and the summary above says which.
Figures are shown exactly as the paper gives them, in its own currency and price year. We do not convert between currencies: see the glossary for why.
- Patients modelled or enrolled
- Hypothetical inoperable stage I NSCLC patients treated in The Netherlands; no enrolled cohort described
- Comparator
- stereotactic body radiotherapy
- Indication
- inoperable stage I non-small cell lung cancer
- Study design
- Real options analysis (decision analysis of adopt-without-research, adopt-and-trial, and delay-and-trial options); outcome not stated as QALY or other metric
- Time horizon
- 5 years
- Delivery technique
- not reported by this study
- Perspective
- decision-analytic perspective (ROA; no payer or societal perspective stated)
- Currency
- EUR (€)
- Price year
- not reported by this study
- Willingness-to-pay threshold
- not reported by this study
- Discount rate
- not reported by this study
- Cost of the particle course assumed
- not reported by this study
- Cost of the comparator assumed
- not reported by this study
Whose costs were counted: a payer, a hospital, or society as a whole.
The year the costs are expressed in. Without it, a figure cannot be compared across time.
The condition attached to the finding
Preferred option (adopt and trial, optimal sample size 200 patients) changes with increased treatment costs abroad and with costs of reversal of the adoption decision.
Capital cost assumption
- What it assumed
- Approximately €95 million investment cost for proton therapy facilities
- Where that figure came from
- Cited as reference [13] in the text (not further specified in the excerpt)
Reporting quality
74 out of 100 on the Quality of Health Economic Studies instrument, a 16-item checklist covering the objective, the perspective, the sources of each estimate, the handling of uncertainty, the horizon and discounting, how costs were measured, the model's transparency, the discussion of bias, and whether funding was disclosed. It measures how well the study was reported, not whether its conclusion is correct: a well-reported study can still reach a conclusion a later trial overturns.