Economic Evaluations of Pembrolizumab in Early and Advanced Stage Cancers

A systematic review by Hyo-Jin Kim, published in 2026, compares methodological differences in cost-effectiveness analyses for the cancer drug pembrolizumab. It synthesizes findings from 41 published articles and 25 technology appraisals from agencies like NICE and PBAC. The review focuses on melanoma, triple-negative breast cancer, and renal cell carcinoma.

Use Cases

• Compare the frequency of Markov model usage and cure assumptions between early and advanced stage cancer evaluations.
• Analyze the association between methodological choices like time horizon and utility approach with cost-effectiveness conclusions.
• Identify discrepancies in time horizon and treatment effect waning assumptions between published articles and official technology appraisals.
• Examine how the use of distinct health states for recurrence and metastasis differs between cancer stages in economic models.

Strengths

• Systematic review protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42025646192), indicating a structured methodology.
• Analysis is based on a defined corpus of 41 published articles and 25 technology appraisals from major health agencies.
• Focuses on a specific drug (pembrolizumab) across three cancer types, allowing for targeted comparison.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 96.5 KB DOCX document, containing textual analysis rather than structured, machine-readable data tables.
• Findings are specific to pembrolizumab and three cancer types, limiting generalizability to other immune checkpoint inhibitors or cancers.
• As a published review, the underlying primary data from the 41 articles is not directly accessible within this file.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Hyo-Jin Kim.

Collection Method

Systematic literature review of PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library, supplemented by review of technology appraisals from NICE, CDA-AMC, and PBAC.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated March 2026.

Geography

Studies and appraisals are from international sources, including the UK (NICE), Canada (CDA-AMC), and Australia (PBAC).