| dc.description.abstract | Background In Norway, about 250,000 individuals are diagnosed with diabetes, and about 200,000 of them are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The most common serious diabetes-related events are cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction and stroke. There are different types of glucose-lowering drugs to help prevent these events, but the drugs have negative side effects. Research objective The thesis is designed to compare the cost-effectiveness of sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors with other glucose-lowering drugs. Methods A Markov model is developed with 4 initial events and 8 health states. There are costs and health effects associated with all the health states. Costs are considered from a health care perspective, and the health effects are measured in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and life years (LY) gained. A lifelong time horizon is chosen. Both deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analysis was performed. Results The incremental cost of SGLT2 inhibitors compared to other glucose-lowering drugs is NOK 49,617. The incremental effect of SGLT2 inhibitors is 0.30 QALYs and 0.42 LYs gained, giving the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of NOK 166,000 per QALY and NOK 117,000 per LY. Assuming a threshold of NOK 475,000 per QALY, simulations indicate a 68.3% probability that SGLT2 inhibitors are cost-effective. Conclusion SGLT2 inhibitors are cost-effective compared to other glucose-lowering drugs for WTP threshold values of NOK 475,000. | nob |