The cost and cost-effectiveness of treating non-small-cell lung cancer

Lung cancer is a common malignancy for which there are an increasing number of therapeutic interventions. Many of these interventions include new and expensive chemotherapeutic agents, which yield modest improvements in survival and quality of life for patients with advanced non-small-lung cancer (NSCLC), but at a fairly high cost to healthcare funders. This article summarizes the pharmacoeconomic studies that have been published on the cost and cost-effectiveness of treating NSCLC. It also describes the types of economic analyses that are most commonly found in the literature and gives guidance to readers on what to look for in such studies. The available literature suggests that combined modality therapies for locally advanced NSCLC and most chemotherapeutic approaches used in the treatment of metastatic NSCLC fall within the generally accepted definitions of cost-effectiveness.