ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1596874
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Economics into Population Health: Assessing Policies and OutcomesView all 15 articles
Four oral iron supplements for treating iron-deficiency anemia during pregnancy in China: a cost-effectiveness and budget analysis
Provisionally accepted
- Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
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Objectives: This study has two primary objectives: (a) to conduct a comparative cost-effectiveness analysis of four commonly used oral iron supplements for treating iron-deficiency anemia during pregnancy in China, including ferrous succinate sustained-release tablets, polysaccharide-iron complex capsules, iron protein succinylate oral solution, and iron dextran oral solution; and (b) to assess the budget impact of including ferrous succinate sustained-release tablets in the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) on national medical insurance expenditures.Methods: A decision tree model was developed to analyze the cost-effectiveness based on treatment efficacy derived from a network meta-analysis. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to address uncertainties in the parameters. Subsequently, a budget impact analysis model was utilized to calculate the effect of including ferrous succinate sustained-release tablets in the NRDL on the expenditures of employee medical insurance funds, resident medical insurance funds, and the total medical insurance fund expenditures.The cost-effectiveness analysis showed that ferrous succinate sustained-release tablets are a cost-effective treatment option. When compared to polysaccharide-iron complex capsules, the additional cost per effect of the ferrous succinate sustained-release tablets is $3.23. If these tablets are included in the NRDL, the total medical insurance expenditure on oral iron preparations for treating iron-deficiency anemia in pregnant women is expected to decrease from $160.14 million to $156.82 million between 2025 and 2027.Conclusions: Ferrous succinate sustained-release tablets are a cost-effective treatment option for iron-deficiency anemia during pregnancy in China.
Keywords: Iron-deficiency anemia, Pregnancy, oral iron supplements, cost-effectiveness analysis, budget
Received: 20 Mar 2025; Accepted: 22 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Zeng, Zhang and Gu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hai Gu, ghai1008@nju.edu.cn
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