Comparative cost-effectiveness of the HeartWare versus HeartMate II left ventricular assist devices used in the United Kingdom National Health Service bridge-to-transplant program for patients with heart failure.

BACKGROUND: Patients with advanced heart failure may receive a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) as part of a bridge-to-transplant (BTT) strategy. The United Kingdom National Health Service (UK NHS) has financed a BTT program in which the predominant LVADs used have been the HeartMate II (HM II; Thoratec, Pleasanton, CA) and HeartWare (HW; HeartWare International, Inc. Framingham, MA). We aimed to compare the cost-effectiveness of the use of these within the NHS program.

METHODS: Individual patient data from the UK NHS Blood and Transplant Data Base were analyzed with Kaplan-Meier and competing outcomes methodologies. Outcomes were time to death, time to heart transplant (HT), and cumulative incidences of HT, death on LVAD support, and LVAD explantation. A semi-Markov multistate economic model was built to assess cost-effectiveness. The perspective was from the NHS, discount rates were 3.5%. Outcomes were quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and incremental cost (2011 prices in GB£) per QALY (ICER) for HW vs HM II.

RESULTS: Survival was better with HW support than with HM II. Cumulative incidence of HT was low for both groups (11% at ~2 years). HW patients accrued 4.99 lifetime QALYs costing £258,913 ($410,970), HM II patients accrued 3.84 QALYs costing £231,871 ($368,048); deterministic and probabilistic ICERs for HW vs HM II were £23,530 ($37,349) and £20,799 ($33,014), respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: Patients In the UK BTT program who received the HW LVAD had a better clinical outcome than those who received the HM II, and the HW was more cost-effective. This result needs to be reassessed in a randomized controlled trial comparing the 2 devices.