Evaluating the cost-effectiveness of therapy conversion to insulin detemir in patients with type 2 diabetes in Germany: a modelling study of long-term clinical and cost outcomes

Purpose: To evaluate the long-term cost-effectiveness of transferring type 2 diabetes patients to an insulin detemir regimen after failure to achieve adequate control with oral antidiabetic agents (OADs) alone, or in combination with neutral protamine hagedorn (NPH) insulin, or with insulin glargine in Germany. Methods: A computer simulation model of diabetes was used to make long-term projections of future clinical outcomes and direct medical costs based on findings from a German subanalysis of the PREDICTIVE trial. The study analysed the impact of converting patients failing their current treatments to an insulin detemir regimen. Therapy conversion to insulin detemir ± OADs was associated with a significant reduction in glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA 1c) compared with OADs alone, NPH insulin ± OADs, and insulin glargine ± OADs. Across all three groups, hypoglycaemia rates decreased by 80% and patients lost an average of 0.9 kg of body weight during treatment with insulin detemir ± OADs. Results: Therapy conversion to insulin detemir ± OADs was projected to improve life expectancy by 0.28 years compared with OADs alone, and by 0.13 years compared with the NPH and glargine regimens. Transfer to insulin detemir was associated with improvements in quality-adjusted life expectancy of 0.21 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) over OADs alone, 0.28 QALYs over NPH ± OADs, and 0.29 QALYs over glargine ± OADs. Insulin detemir was associated with savings over patient lifetimes due to reduced diabetes-related complications in all three comparisons. Conclusions: Therapy conversion to insulin detemir ± OADs in type 2 diabetes patients failing OADs alone, NPH or insulin glargine regimens was associated with improvements in life expectancy, quality-adjusted life expectancy and cost savings in all three scenarios evaluated. © Springer Healthcare Communications 2008.