A comparative study for cost-utility analysis methods: An application to a case study on multicomponent vaccine against Meningococcal B Disease

The aim of this study is to explore and compare the results of application of three different modelling techniques used to perform Cost-utility Analysis in Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment (HTA). The three modelling techniques described are Decision Tree, Markov model and Discrete Event Simulation. For each of these modelling techniques was evaluated the introduction of a multicomponent serogroup B meningococcal vaccine. The preliminary cost-utility analysis herein developed considers societal perspective, and evaluates the impact of vaccination on Italian infants less than one year of age. The models validation and the Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio (ICER) resulting from each technique are reported, in preliminary results each modelling technique gives different ICER, depending on the modelling technique.