"Multiple sclerosis is known as a complex, incurable disease, with multiple therapies available. Unfortunately, these therapies are expensive and in many cases ineffective," said Dirk Smeets, PhD, vice president of clinical applications at Icometrix. "The paper calculates the potential health-economic benefit in the U.S. of closely monitoring the subclinical disease activity to detect suboptimal treatment earlier and demonstrate that significant savings can be achieved without compromising the quality of care."
Previous research has estimated that approximately 10,000 MS therapy sessions occur annually in the U.S. at an average cost of $60,000 each. As many as one-quarter of the treatments have limited success over the course of four years, other studies have reported, which would place the cost of failed therapy in the range of $600 million.
Smeets and colleagues took those figures and re-examined the overall costs when MRI was added to the equation and used to monitor MS lesions and brain atrophy.
The probability of detecting treatment failure with MRI is 3.1 times higher, which reduces the average time spent on suboptimal treatment to 1.3 years, they concluded. That reduction would result in cost savings of about $400 million (67%).
From the patient point of view, MRI monitoring of MS lesions and brain atrophy also allows clinicians to better predict the progression of disability, as well as the potential for relapse.
"Economically more effective disease management allows for a therapeutic strategy that offers the best chance of preserving brain tissue early in the disease course," Smeets told AuntMinnie.com. "Disease-modifying treatments typically have a nonlinear, typically incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, meaning that the earlier the therapy starts, the higher the relative health gains."
