Liver Resection for Advanced Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma: A Cost-Utility Analysis

Background: Data on cost-effectiveness and efficacy of hepatic resection (HR) for advanced intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) are lacking. We sought to estimate the cost-effectiveness of upfront HR resulting in an R1 resection (strategy A) relative to initial systemic chemotherapy (sCT) followed by possible curative HR (strategy B) for patients with advanced ICC. Methods: A Markov model was developed using data from a systematic literature review. Three base cases were considered: (1) ICC >6 cm (2) ICC with vascular invasion (3) multi-focal ICC. A Monte Carlo simulation assessed outcomes including quality-adjusted life months (QALMs) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). Results: The net health benefit (NHB) of strategy A versus strategy B was 1.4 QALMs for ICC >6 cm and 1.3 QALMs for ICC and vascular invasion; in contrast, there was a negative NHB for HR versus sCT for multi-focal ICC (-0.3 QALMs). In single nodule ICC >6 cm, the ICER of HR versus sCT was $22,482/quality-adjusted life years (QALY) and the ICER of HR versus sCT was $20,953/QALY for ICC with vascular invasion. In multi-focal ICC, the ICER of HR compared with sCT was $83,604/QALY. Patients with a higher American Society of Anesthesiologists score (coefficient 0.94), male sex (coefficient 0.43), low quality of life after sCT (coefficient -2.57) and T3 tumors (coefficient 0.53) had a better NHB for HR relative to sCT followed by potential surgery. Conclusions: For patients with large ICC or ICC and vascular invasion, HR was more cost-effective than sCT. In contrast, HR was not associated with a positive NHB relative to sCT for patients with multi-focal ICC, and therefore these patients should be treated with sCT rather than HR.