Estimated Cost of Circulating Tumor DNA for Posttreatment Surveillance of Human Papillomavirus–Associated Oropharyngeal Cancer
Roman O. Kowalchuk, Benjamin C. Kamdem Talom, Kathryn M. Van Abel, MariappanJonathan Daniel, Mark R. Waddle, David M. Routman
Abstract
striking since only 10% to 15% of patients with HPV-associated OPSCC will develop recurrent disease. In addition, fewer imaging studies would reduce costs and ameliorate patient anxiety. cause ctDNA is a laboratory test, surveillance could be completed without a follow-up visit, further reducing costs and travel burden. Also, ctDNA offers a potential lead time of more than 3 months prior to biopsy-proven recurrence. Validation in HPV-associated OPSCC is underway (NCT04564989). Limitations of this analysis include the lack of a comparison of incremental costeffectiveness ratio, which is a result of the limited literature available in this field. Our analysis supports ctDNA as a low-cost posttreatment surveillance strategy for HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer compared with imaging-based strategies.