The quality-adjusted life-years loss due to serogroup B invasive meningococcal disease in Spain

Introduction: Despite its impact on a patient's life, there is a paucity of evidence on the humanistic burden of invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) due to serogroup B (MenB) in Spain. This study estimates the total quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) loss due to MenB-IMD in Spain from a societal perspective. Materials and methods: A previously published incidence-based Excel tool adapted to the Spanish setting was used to estimate total QALY losses over a patient's lifetime horizon, including direct and indirect impact on patients and families/caregivers, respectively. A 3% discount rate was applied, and a deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed to evaluate uncertainty and assumptions used for the base case. Results: The total discounted QALY loss for a hypothetical cohort of 142 cases of MenB-IMD was 572.44 QALYs (4.03/case). Direct loss (attributable to patients) represented 81.2% of the total loss (464.54 QALYs; 3.27/case) and indirect loss (caused to relatives/ caregivers) represented 18.8% (108.90 QALYs; 0.76/case). Sequelae had the highest impact on QALY loss for both patients (60.5%) and relatives/caregivers (84.6%). Children <5 years of age (YOA) accounted for 47.8% of the total QALY loss. Mortality accounted for 17.62 QALY loss per death. The discount rate parameter showed the highest influence on results and the probabilistic sensitivity analysis revealed a 98.0% probability of total QALY loss achieving the point estimate. Conclusions: The results emphasize that the humanistic burden associated with a MenB case is mainly driven by its sequelae, impacting the patients and their relatives/caregivers.