Korean J Blood Transfus.  2008 Aug;19(2):91-99.

Cost-Effectiveness of Donor Screening Strategies for Acitretin Medication

• Um TH
• Whang DH
• Park HD
• Kim JH
• Ha M
• Cho NS

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Donors with acitretin medication history are deferred for three years in Korea, because acitretin has teratogenic effect. Authors tried to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the donor screening measures for acitretin medication.
METHODS
From January 2006 to May 2007, the numbers of screened donors and accepted donors were 10,098,868 and 7,867,019, respectively. Although there was no single case of reported congenital malformation due to transfusion of blood donated by donors on acitretin medication, we assumed one case had occurred to contect the cost-effectiveness analysis. Also, the quality of life (QOL) of fetus with congenital malformation was assumed to be 0. The expected life-span of average Korean people was 78.6 years.
RESULTS
The cost-effectiveness of electronic inquiry of computer database and blood test for acitretin were calculated to be 173,453,840 won/QALY and 8,780,333,865/QALY, respectively. They equaled $188,537/QALY and $9,543,841/QALY, respectively.
CONCLUSION
The cost-effectiveness of electronic inquiry of computer database and blood test for acitretin were 3.8 and 190 times of $50,000/QALY, which is usually accepted to be reasonable in medical field. Electronic inquiry of computer database could be reasonable measure, if we deal with the problem protecting donor privacy, while blood test for acitretin could not be enforced because of unacceptably expensive cost.

Keyword

Cost-effectiveness; Acitretin; Blood donor; Medication

MeSH Terms

Acitretin
Blood Donors
Donor Selection
Electronics
Electrons
Fetus
Hematologic Tests
Humans
Korea
Privacy
Quality of Life
Tissue Donors
Acitretin