Rationale and budget impact of bimonthly use of Cetuximab in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck cancer

Background: In recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck squamous cell cancer, Cetuximab is administered once a week, followed by weekly doses. We present the clinical rationale of a different schedule of maintenance Cetuximab and we estimate the potential economic benefits on the health care budget from a societal perspective in Italy. Methods: A budget impact (BI) excel-based model was developed comparing a base case scenario of 100% weekly administration with a dose of 250 mg/m ² to an every-other-week (EOW) administration at 50% or 100% with a dose of 500 mg/m ² . Results: In the EOW, 50% scenario it was calculated a cost reduction of €347 000 of which 70% attributable to indirect costs, increasing to €694 000 after 4 months. Conclusions: In our analysis, we showed that this simplified schedule could also reduce the costs of treatments both for the health system (direct costs) and for the society (indirect costs).