A cost-effectiveness analysis of primary versus hospital-based specialist care for direct acting antiviral hepatitis C treatment

摘要

Background: Hepatitis C virus elimination may be possible by scaling up direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment. Due to the safety and simplicity of DAA treatment, primary care-based treatment delivery is now feasible, efficacious and may be cheaper than hospital-based specialist care. In this paper, we use Prime Study data - a randomised controlled trial comparing the uptake of DAA treatment between primary and hospital-based care settings amongst people who inject drugs (PWID) - to estimate the cost of initiating treatment for PWID diagnosed with hepatitis C in primary care compared to hospital-based care.