Cost Effectiveness of Elderly Pneumococcal Vaccination in Presence of Higher-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Childhood Vaccination

Systematic Literature Review with Focus on Methods and Assumptions

authored by

Marina Treskova, Stefan M. Scholz, Alexander Kuhlmann

Abstract

Background: Previous systematic reviews concluded that pneumococcal vaccination in the elderly was cost effective. However, recently published economic evaluations state that it may not be cost effective when children are vaccinated with higher-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. The literature suggests that the outcomes of vaccination in the elderly are strongly influenced by the vaccine effectiveness (VE) against the vaccine-type pneumococcal diseases (PD) and the impact of childhood vaccination on the vaccine-type PD incidence in the elderly, but the extent remains unclear.

Methods: We conducted a systematic literature search of cost-effectiveness studies on vaccination in the elderly in the PubMed database starting from 2006. We included studies that consider the presence of a childhood vaccination with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) 10 and PCV13. We focus on methods and assumptions used in modeling VE and epidemiology of PD over time.

Results: Twenty-eight economic evaluations underwent full-text review and data extraction. Thirteen were selected for quality assessment. The studies with a higher quality score provide evidence that vaccinating the elderly with PCV13 is not cost effective, when an ongoing rapid decline in the incidence of PCV13-type PD is modeled. A moderate persistence of PCV13 serotypes, in particular due to PCV10 childhood vaccination, makes vaccination of the elderly with PCV13 more attractive. There is no agreement that combining PCV13 with polysaccharide vaccine PPSV23 is cost effective. PPSV23 is attractive when it is effective against non-invasive PD.

Conclusion: Methodological approaches and assumptions in modeling VE and the indirect effects of childhood vaccination have a major impact on outcomes of decision-analytic models and cost-effectiveness estimates. Considering recently observed trends in the epidemiology of pneumococcal serotypes, there is currently inconclusive evidence regarding the cost effectiveness of pneumococcal vaccination of the elderly due to lack of studies that model key serotypes such as serotype 3 separately from other groups of serotypes.

Organisation(s)

Center for Health Economics Research Hannover (CHERH)

External Organisation(s)

German Center for Lung Research
Bielefeld University
Biomedical Research in Endstage & Obstructive Lung Disease (BREATH)

Type

Article

Journal

PharmacoEconomics

Volume

Pages

1093-1127

No. of pages

ISSN

1170-7690

Publication date

01.09.2019

Publication status

Published

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Pharmacology, Health Policy, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40273-019-00805-5 (Access: Closed)