ArticleFrontiers in pharmacology2025
Cost-effectiveness analysis of first-line treatments for recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer in China: an economic evaluation based on network meta-analysis.
Article in Frontiers in pharmacology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 3 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
A Phase 3 Clinical Trial of Pembrolizumab (MK-3475) in First Line Treatment of Recurrent/Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma
A Multicenter, Randomized, Open-label, Phase III Trial to Assess Efficacy and Safety of Cetuximab When Given in Combination With Cisplatin Plus 5 Fluorouracil Versus Cisplatin Plus 5-fluorouracil Alone for the First-line Treatment of Chinese Subjects With Recurrent and/or Metastatic Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck
SCT-I10A Combined With Standard Chemotherapy Versus Placebo Combined With Standard Chemotherapy in First-line Recurrent/ Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC): A Phase III, Multicenter, Randomized, Double-blinded Trial
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Cost-effectiveness analysis of first-line penpulimab plus chemotherapy for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma in China.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (R/M HNSCC) is a common pathological type of head and neck tumors, imposing a huge disease burden in China. This study evaluated the cost-effectiveness of three first-line treatment regimens for R/M HNSCC approved in China from the perspective of Chinese payers, including cetuximab plus chemotherapy, pembrolizumab as monotherapy or in combination with chemotherapy, and finotonlimab plus chemotherapy, aiming to provide reference for decision-making. Methods: Based on the data from three randomized controlled trials: KEYNOTE-048 (NCT02358031), CHANGE-2 (NCT02383966), and the finotonlimab trial (NCT04146402), we conducted a network meta-analysis and employed partitioned survival model (PSM) to indirectly evaluate and compare the cost-effectiveness of treatments associated with finotonlimab, pembrolizumab (monotherapy or combination), and cetuximab. The simulation cycle of the model was set to 3 weeks, with a study duration of 20 years and a discount rate of 3.0%. The primary outcomes included life years (LYs), quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) and incremental net monetary benefits (INMBs), with a willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold of 1-3 times China's Results: In the overall population, compared to cetuximab-chemotherapy, pembrolizumab monotherapy (ICER: 85,131.70/QALY) and pembrolizumab-chemotherapy (ICER: 203,545.22/QALY) were less cost-effective, while finotonlimab-chemotherapy (ICER: 161.13/QALY) was significantly more favorable. The net monetary benefit (NMB) analysis supported this finding, with finotonlimab-chemotherapy group having the highest INMB ($4,746.03 vs cetuximab-chemotherapy), followed by pembrolizumab (-$17,381.75) and pembrolizumab-chemotherapy (-$32,841.18). The results were similar in the population with PD-L1 CPS ≥1 and CPS ≥20. The one-way sensitivity analysis revealed that drug costs, the discount rate, and utility values for progression-free survival (PFS) and disease progression (PD) were key parameters significantly impacting the ICERs. Additionally, both probabilistic sensitivity analysis and scenario analysis confirmed that the results of base-case analysis were robust. Conclusion: From the perspective of the Chinese population, finotonlimab-chemotherapy is the most cost-effective first-line treatment for R/M HNSCC, followed by cetuximab-chemotherapy. Pembrolizumab, whether as monotherapy or in combination, does not offer economic benefits.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.