Cost-Effectiveness of Polygenic Risk Scores to Guide Statin Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention

Background: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are leading causes of death despite effective therapies and result in unnecessary morbidity and mortality throughout the world. We aimed to investigate the cost-effectiveness of polygenic risk scores (PRS) to guide statin therapy for Canadians with intermediate CVD risk and model its economic outlook.

Methods: This cost-utility analysis was conducted using UK Biobank prospective cohort study participants, with recruitment from 2006 to 2010, and at least 10 years of follow-up. We included nonrelated white British-descent participants (n=96 116) at intermediate CVD risk with no prior lipid lowering medication or statin-indicated conditions. A coronary artery disease PRS was used to inform decision to use statins. The effects of statin therapy with and without PRS, as well as CVD events were modelled to determine the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio from a Canadian public health care perspective. We discounted future costs and quality-adjusted life-years by 1.5% annually.

Results: The optimal economic strategy was when intermediate risk individuals with a PRS in the top 70% are eligible for statins while the lowest 1% are excluded. Base-case analysis at a genotyping cost of $70 produced an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $172 906 (143 685 USD) per quality-adjusted life-year. In the probabilistic sensitivity analysis, the intervention has approximately a 50% probability of being cost-effective at $179 100 (148 749 USD) per quality-adjusted life-year. At a $0 genotyping cost, representing individuals with existing genotyping information, PRS-guided strategies dominated standard care when 12% of the lowest PRS individuals were withheld from statins. With improved PRS predictive performance and lower genotyping costs, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio demonstrates possible cost-effectiveness under thresholds of $150 000 and possibly $50 000 per quality-adjusted life-year.

Conclusions: This study suggests that using PRS alongside existing guidelines might be cost-effective for CVD. Stronger predictiveness combined with decreased cost of PRS could further improve cost-effectiveness, providing an economic basis for its inclusion into clinical care.