Preferences of patients with HR+ & HER2- breast cancer regarding hormonal and targeted therapies in the first line of their metastatic stage: a discrete choice experiment

Abstract

Objective: Some hormonal and targeted treatment options are available in the first line of metastatic HR+ & HER2- breast cancer. This study aimed to quantify the preferences of Iranian breast cancer patients regarding the levels of attributes of hypothetical treatment options. Methods: The discrete choice experiment included 16 orthogonally designed scenarios. A novel method (named “the World Cup”) was used to offer the scenarios to the respondents. Each choice task had 2 hypothetical treatments. A conditional logit regression model was used to obtain preference estimates, based on an expected utility model without interactions between attributes. Results: A total of 78 patients with breast cancer participated in the survey. The effectiveness was the main concern of the patient, which was followed by monthly cost. Participant patients significantly preferred to avoid adverse events; preference dummy-coded estimates were reported. Conclusion: Followed by the effectiveness and cost, the risk of neutropenia, stomatitis, and arthralgia was least prioritized by the respondents. The estimation for the levels of the attribute “administration mode” is not significant (P =. 690). Patients with breast cancer were willing to pay significant amounts to gain the benefit of the treatments and showed a significant willingness to accept to avoid the adverse events of the treatments.