Evaluating Cost Effectiveness of Clinical Trials

For Release: November 3, 1999

National Study Creates Model To Evaluate
Cost Effectiveness of Clinical Trials

A Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) pilot study has successfully created a method that will someday be able to measure the cost effectiveness of clinical trials.

A paper on the study was delivered by RTOG economist Jean B. Owen, Ph.D. November 3 at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) in San Antonio, TX.

"We picked two clinical trials and created a model based on what resources are required for radiation therapy in each arm of the trial," Dr. Owen explained. "Next, we analyzed the data on the patients in the trials and compared those to the model results."

The objective, she said, was to determine how well a model could predict costs associated with care delivered in clinical trials. The results were encouraging: in one of the trials the model did very well.

To date, there haven't been any studies specifically aimed at calculating the economic implications of clinical trials, according to Dr. Owen. "With the development of such models, we now are moving toward a cost effectiveness analysis about what resources are need to conduct clinical trials."

Usually, she explained, the experimental arm of clinical trials is more expensive than the other section, but this is not always the case.

Dr. Owen said that while the results of the model study are promising more research is needed to evaluate whether this method can be applied on a larger scale to examine the economics of clinical trials.

RTOG is a federally funded cancer clinical trials group, with headquarters in Philadelphia, PA, which carries out multi-disciplinary research in North America. It is a clinical research component of the American College of Radiology. For more details about RTOG clinical trials, contact Timothy McKeough at 215-574-3205.

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