Cost-effectiveness of Combination Therapy of Anticoagulants/antiplatelets with Proton Pump Inhibitors: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Anticoagulants/antiplatelets are effective in preventing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, as an adverse effect, the risk of upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) leads to additional costs due to increased treatment and decreased quality of life. Accordingly, the administration of proton pump inhibitors (PPI) is recommended to prevent UGIB. We conducted a systematic review of economic evaluations of PPI co-therapy for patients taking long-term anticoagulants/ antiplatelets to prevent CVDs to examine the cost effectiveness of PPI co-therapy. We searched literature from PubMed and EMBASE with keywords including types of economic evaluations and active ingredients of anticoagulants and antiplatelets on 13/07/2022. Two independent reviewers conducted a systematic review. As a result, six economic evaluation studies were identified. All studies compared PPI co-therapy with low-dose aspirin to prevent CVDs. We confirmed the cost-effectiveness of PPI co-therapy with the respective incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) in each base case. In the sensitivity analyses, the PPI cost and adherence influenced the ICER the most. The quality of reporting, which was assessed using the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards checklist, was 87-96%. In the present study, we found that PPI co-therapy was cost-effective and tended to improve the patient’s life years and quality-adjusted life years. These results can be used as evidence for further economic evaluation studies to verify the costeffectiveness of anticoagulants/antiplatelets and PPI co-therapy.