ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1620663
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancing Health Technology Assessment and Patient-Reported Outcomes: Innovations and Implications for Health Economics and Outcomes ResearchView all 3 articles
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Sugemalimab Combined with Chemotherapy as First-Line Treatment for Advanced Gastric Cancer
Provisionally accepted
- Second Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Objective: Based on findings from the GEMSTONE-303 trial, the sugemalimab plus capecitabine and oxaliplatin regimen showed superior clinical efficacy compared to chemotherapy alone in advanced gastric cancer patients. This economic evaluation study assesses the cost-effectiveness of sugemalimab combination therapy within China's healthcare system framework. Methods: A partitioned survival model was constructed based on data from the GEMSTONE-303 study, with a cycle length of 3 weeks. The model simulated patients' direct medical costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) over a 10-year period. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was used as the evaluation metric, comparing the ICER against the willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold (3 times China's per capita GDP in 2024, 287,391 CNY/QALY).One-way sensitivity analysis and probabilistic sensitivity analysis were conducted to assess the robustness of the results. Results: The base-case analysis showed that the sugemalimab regimen provided greater health benefits compared to the placebo group (1.36 QALYs vs. 1.24 QALYs) but incurred significantly higher costs (271,041.24 CNY vs. 44,174.69 CNY), yielding an ICER of 1,890,554.58 CNY/QALY. One-way sensitivity analysis indicated that the utility values for the progressive disease (PD) state, progression-free survival (PFS) state, and the cost of sugemalimab had the most substantial impact on the ICER. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis demonstrated stable results, with a 0% probability that the sugemalimab combination regimen was cost-effective. Conclusion: Under the current economic conditions in China, sugemalimab combined with chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for advanced gastric cancer is not cost-effective.
Keywords: sugemalimab, First-line treatment, Advanced gastric cancer, partitioned survival model, cost-effectiveness analysis
Received: 30 Apr 2025; Accepted: 11 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tang, Zhu, Zhan, Chen and Feng. 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: Panfeng Feng, Second Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.