Health Economic Evidence for Liquid Biopsy Assays in Cancer Management

MUSSAB FAGERY
PhD Student
Cancer Health Services Research 
UMCCR 

Despite the fact that tumor tissue is still the gold standard source for clinical molecular analyses, however, cancer-derived material circulating in the bloodstream or other body fluids, also referred to as liquid biopsy (LBs), has become an appealing adjunct or alternative. LBs are showing promise in several clinical applications, including screening and early detection, detecting minimal residual disease, and treatment selection and monitoring. LBs have several advantages such as that they are less invasive, have a rapid turnaround time, and can be performed multiple times.

While the clinical evidence for using LBs in cancer care is still evolving, more evidence on health economic benefits is necessary. Generally, health economic assessments provide a useful piece of information around the overall clinical benefits and costs associated with health technologies, which consequently will help with clinical translation and adoption. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to summarise the current health economic evidence base for LB assays, through identifying economic evaluations conducted for these assays, as well as to summarise the outcomes, methods, and results reported.

Mussab Fagery is a PhD student under the supervision of Professor Maarten IJzerman, and his research will be addressing the translation gap of complex genomic testing through liquid biopsy into cancer health services. Before joining CHSR, Mussab has been working as Research Associate with the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation (CHERE) at the University of Technology Sydney. On that role, he has worked on multiple projects aimed at provision of external evaluation of Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) and other health technology related submissions for the Australian Department of Health.

Mussab obtained his bachelor’s degree of Pharmacy (Hons) at the University of Medical Sciences & Technology (UMST) in Sudan, and his Master of Public Health Science with health economics at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.