Benefit valuation in economic evaluation of cancer therapies - A systematic review of the published literature

Generic measures of benefit which employ individuals' preferences, such as the quality-adjusted life-year (QALY), are, in principle, the most appropri ate outcome measure to use in the economic evaluation of cancer therapies. They can reflect the trade-offs between health-related quality of life (HR- QOL) and length of life, between different dimensions of HR-QOL and between the process (e.g. convenience) and outcome characteristics of treatments. This paper reviews the methods literature on preference-based measures of b enefit in economic evaluation, with the aim of establishing good practice f or applied studies using these methods. A systematic review of applied econ omic evaluations of cancer therapies which have used these types of benefit measure was performed with the aim of establishing whether studies in this area adhere to good practice. In total, 29 studies were reviewed, and the results showed that, in general, good methods are not being adopted. This m ay be due, in part, to authors not having the space in journals to detail t heir methods fully, but it is likely also to reflect the fact that good met hods for the use of preference-based measures of benefit in economic evalua tion have not been adequately disseminated.