Willingness-to-pay for cancer treatment and outcome: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Understanding patient preferences in cancer management is essential for shared decision-making. Patient or societal willingness-to-pay (WTP) for desired outcomes in cancer management represents their preferences and values of these outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this systematic review is to critically evaluate how current literature has addressed WTP in relation to cancer treatment and achievement of outcomes.

METHODS: Seven databases were searched from inception until 2 March 2021 to include studies with primary data of WTP values for cancer treatments or achievement of outcomes that were elicited using stated preference methods.

RESULTS: Fifty-four studies were included in this review. All studies were published after year 2000 and more than 90% of the studies were conducted in high-income countries. Sample size of the studies ranged from 35 to 2040, with patient being the most studied population. There was a near even distribution between studies using contingent valuation and discrete choice experiment. Based on the included studies, the highest WTP values were for a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) ($11,498-$589,822), followed by 1-year survival ($3-$198,576), quality of life (QoL) improvement ($5531-$139,499), and pain reduction ($79-$94,662). Current empirical evidence suggested that improvement in QoL and pain reduction had comparable weights to survival in cancer management.

CONCLUSION: This systematic review provides a summary on stated preference studies that elicited patient preferences via WTP and summarised their respective values. Respondents in this review had comparable WTP for 1-year survival and QoL, suggesting that improvement in QoL should be emphasised together with survival in cancer management.