Add-on digital therapeutics more cost-effective than standard treatment for essential hypertension

The combination of digital therapeutics (DTx) with the treatment-as-usual (TAU) strategy for essential hypertension is more cost-effective than TAU alone, a recent Japan study has found.

Drawing data from the phase III randomized controlled trial HERB-DH1, the researchers constructed monthly cycle Markov models and conducted Monte Carlo simulations to compare the cost-effectiveness of DTx with TAU vs TAU alone, with quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) as the principal efficacy metric. The study population had hypertension and was assessed over a lifetime horizon.

Their analysis revealed that DTx with TAU cost USD 34,122 while TAU alone cost USD 33,160. The respective QALYs were 18.778 and 18.686. As a result, introducing the DTx intervention would increase costs by USD 962 and yield a QALY improvement of 0.092.

The resulting incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was USD 10,434 per additional QALY, which was deemed to be below the hypothetical threshold of cost-effectiveness in Japan.

Sensitivity analysis revealed that monthly DTx cost had the strongest influence on ICER value, followed by intervention attrition and discount rates. Add-on DTx to TAU became the dominant strategy below a monthly cost of USD 44.0.

According to the researchers, these findings suggest the “need to explore the balance among the DTx application cost, app attrition rate, and effectiveness for target hypertensive patients in clinical practice.”