Avaliações econômicas do uso da vacina contra o Papilomavírus Humano (HPV) em meninas adolescentes: uma revisão sistemática

Abstract

The cervical cancer persists as a major health problem worldwide, particularly in developing countries. Two vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) are currently available and approved for use in adolescent girls before the onset of sexual behavior: a bivalent against serotypes 16 and 18 and other quadrivalent against serotypes 6, 11, 16 and 18. These biopharmaceuticals are intended to induce immunity against papillomavirus and thus act in the primary prevention of cervix cancer. The use of vaccine in population programs with the definition of guidelines depends on an elaborate decision making process based on a careful Health Technology Assessment (HTA). The economic evaluations are part of this process. These assessments were the object of this work, which aimed to synthesize the evidence coming from a systematic literature review of studies on the economic evaluation of the use of human papillomavirus vaccination in adolescent girls and pre-teens. We performed a literature search in MEDLINE (via Pubmed), LILACS (via BIREME) and National Health Service Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) until June 2010. Two readers independently selected full economic evaluation studies that have focused on immunization for HPV in women with commercially available vaccines targeting the adolescent population. After the search, 188 of these titles were identified, 39 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in the review. As a review of economic evaluations we did not perform a synthesis of the values of relationship between incremental cost and effectiveness. The 39 articles included 51 economic evaluations in 26 countries. Cost-utility studies predominate (51%). From the standpoint of the perspective of the analysis, there were predominant views of health systems (76.4%). Most studies (94.9%) chose girls, aged between 9 and 12 years as its target population (94.9%) and developed simulations considering immunity for life (84.6%). The models used in the studies were Markov in 25 analysis, transmission dynamics in 11 and hybrid models in 3. The sensitivity analysis revealed a number of important elements of uncertainty and that influenced ICER, a significant part of which related to aspects vaccine: the vaccine costs, duration of immunity, the need for booster doses, vaccine efficacy and program coverage. These elements make up an area of special attention for future models that may be developed in Brazil for economic analysis of vaccination against HPV.