a cost-utility analysis of different antiviral medicine regimens in patients with chronic hepatitis c virus genotype 1 infection

conclusions the use of sof + pr regimen or ldv/sof can significantly reduce the incidence of complications associated with the disease. for example, short and long-term outcomes are better than the current drug regimens for hcv genotype 1 patients in all stages of the disease. objectives this study is aimed to assess the cost-effectiveness of the three drug regimens of pegylated interferon and ribavirin (pr), sofosbuvir (sof) + pr and ledipasvir and sofosbuvir (ldv/sof) in patients with hcv genotype 1 in iran in the year 2014. methods a markov micro-simulation model was used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the three drug strategies for a cohort of 10000 patients. quality-adjusted life-years (qalys) were extracted from published studies. cost data was estimated through the review of medical records and obtaining experts opinion. results the results showed that the sof + pr drug compared with pr had a lower cost and was more effective, but compared with the ldv/sof, in spite of its lower cost, it was less efficient. the qaly values obtained for pr, sof + pr and ldv/sof, respectively, were 10.98, 12.08 and 12.28 and their costs were $ 41,741, $ 7,676 and $ 46,993. moreover, the results obtained from acceptability curves showed that sof + pr were the most cost-effective treatment for thresholds below $ 45,270 ppp. background despite the introduction of new drug regimens with high effectiveness for the hepatitis c virus (hcv) patients, especially in hcv genotype 1, no cost-effectiveness study on the selection of the superior drug strategy in iran has been conducted yet.