Pharmaco-economics of levosimendan in cardiology: A European perspective

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CARDIOLOGY

卷:199

Article

Nieminen, M. S.¹  Buerke, M.²  Parissis, J.³  Ben-Gal, T.^4,5  Pollesello, P.⁶  Kivikko, M.⁶  Severino, P.⁷  Comin-Colet, J.⁸  Wikstrom, G.⁹  Fedele, F.⁷ 

[1] Univ Helsinki, Cent Hosp, Helsinki, Finland

[2] St Marien Krankenhaus, Kardiol Angiol & Internist Intens Med, Siegen, Germany

[3] Attiko Teaching Hosp, Univ Cardiol Clin 2, Athens, Greece

[4] Rabin Med Ctr, Heart Failure Unit, Petah Tiqwa, Israel

[5] Rabin Med Ctr, Heart Transplant Clin, Petah Tiqwa, Israel

[6] Orion Pharma, Crit Care Proprietary Prod Div, Espoo, Finland

[7] Univ Roma La Sapienza, Dept Cardiovasc Resp Nephrol Anesthesiol & Geriat, Rome, Italy

[8] Hosp Mar, Med Res Inst, IMIM, Barcelona, Spain

[9] Uppsala Univ, Akad Sjukhuset, Inst Med Sci, Uppsala, Sweden

关键词: Acute heart failure;    Hospitalization;    Length of stay;    Inodilators;    Costs;    Benefits;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.ijcard.2015.07.049

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Introduction: Heart failure places a significant economic burden on health care. Acute heart failure requires hospitalization and often frequent re-hospitalization in expensive wards where vasoactive rescue therapy is often added on top of standard medications. In these lean times, there is a growing need for cost-effective therapeutic options that supply superior support and in addition shorten the length of stay in hospital and reduce re-hospitalization rates. The inodilator levosimendan represents the latest addition to the vasoactive treatments of acute heart failure patients, and it appears to meet these expectations. Our aim was to answer the question whether the treatment efficacy of levosimendan - when selected as therapy for patients hospitalized for acute heart failure - brings savings to hospitals in various European countries representing different economies. Methods and results: We took a conservative approach and selected some a fortiori arguments to simplify the calculations. We selected seven European countries to represent different economies: Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Israel. Data on the costs of medications and on the cost per day were collected and fed in a simple algorithm to detect savings. These saving varied from country to country, from a minimum of (sic)0.50 in Germany to a maximum of (sic)354.64 in Sweden. Conclusions: The use of levosimendan as a therapy for patients hospitalized for acute heart failure provides a net saving to hospitals driven by a reduction in the length of hospital stay. This finding is true in each of the countries considered in this study. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

【 授权许可】

Free