Economic evaluation of caspofungin vs liposomal amphotericin B for empirical therapy of suspected systemic fungal infection in the German hospital setting

As antifungal agents are frequently used in hematology and oncology, economic data on the empirical therapy of suspected systemic fungal infection are pivotal. Data were analyzed according to: (1) the rate of nephrotoxicity related to treatment with caspofungin in comparison to liposomal amphotericin B (L-AmB) from a randomized clinical trial, (2) the effect of nephrotoxicity on length of hospital stay from a European observational study, and (3) an example of total bottom-up cost in a department of hematology in Germany. All estimates include 95% confidence intervals (CI) using two-stage Monte Carlo simulation on binominal and Gaussian random variables from separate studies with comparable…