Study demonstrates cost-effectiveness of IN.PACT Admiral drug eluting balloon in peripheral artery disease- Medtronic

The prospective, two-year cost-effectiveness study of the IN.PACT Admiral drug eluting balloon (DCB), from Medtronic, carried out in conjunction with the IN.PACT SFA trial in the USA, demonstrated that IN.PACT Admiral DCB is equally cost-effective than standard percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) for the treatment of femoropopliteal artery lesions. The pivotal IN.PACT SFA trial was designed to test the safety and efficacy of IN.PACT Admiral DCB versus standard PTA in patients with superficial femoral artery (SFA) disease (NCT01566461 for the US part, NCT01175850 for the European part); two-year clinical data were recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The trial included a prospectively designed economic analysis in order to provide healthcare decision makers with further insight into the economic effectiveness of IN.PACT Admiral DCB.

Overall, the DCB index hospitalisation costs were higher compared to PTA ($8,293 vs $7,164, respectively) but this initial higher cost was offset by a substantial reduction in follow-up costs through two years ($2,984 vs $4,196, respectively). This led to marginally lower total costs in the DCB arm by the end of two years ($83 mean difference) on top of the significantly lower number of revascularisations in the DCB arm. The follow-up costs included items such as medications, physician fees, outpatient vascular care and repeat hospitalisations.

Comment: The cost analysis shows that the two treatment options are economically equivalent, thus the superiority in efficacy and safety of the DCB versus standard PTA can be considered to provide a cost-effectiveness advantage when the effects of cost and outcomes are combined.