Objectives: In this study, the cost-effectiveness of rituximab was evaluated in comparison with commonly used chemotherapy regimens for patients with advanced follicular lymphoma (FL), from the perspective of the UK National Health Service (NHS).

Methods: Results from four randomized controlled trials comparing the addition of rituximab to chemotherapy regimens: mitoxantrone, chlorambucil, and prednisolone (MCP); cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisolone (CVP); cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone (CHOP); or cyclophosphamide, etoposide, doxorubicin, prednisolone, and interferon alpha (CHVP + IFNalpha) versus chemotherapy alone were used to develop a Markov model. The rates of disease progression and the duration of treatment effect were obtained from the trial data. Treatments were compared in two ways: 1) an individual comparison of rituximab + chemotherapy versus chemotherapy and 2) a multiple treatment comparison using league tables. Economic and clinical outcomes (quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs)) were estimated over patient lifetimes and discounted at 3.5% per annum.

Results: In the individual comparison, the addition of rituximab increased QALYs by (mean, 95% confidence interval) 1.174 (1.02-1.30), 0.909 (0.79-1.01), 0.823 (0.71-0.91), and 0.453 (0.40-0.50) for MCP, CVP, CHOP, and CHVP, respectively, compared with chemotherapy alone. The incremental costs per QALY gained were pound7474, pound8621, pound10,732, and pound8551, respectively. Sensitivity analyses indicated that rituximab plus chemotherapy was a cost-effective treatment option, with incremental cost-effectiveness ratios below a threshold of pound30,000 per QALY gained. When compared across the chemotherapy regimens, rituximab plus MCP appeared to be the single most cost-effective treatment option, but further randomized trials are required to substantiate this.

Conclusions: The addition of rituximab to chemotherapy in advanced FL was found to be highly cost-effective in the UK.