Health utility in preclinical and prodromal Alzheimer's disease for establishing the value of new disease-modifying treatments—EQ-5D data from the Swedish BioFINDER study

Quality of life and health utility are important outcomes for patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and central for demonstrating the value of new treatments. Estimates in biomarker-confirmed AD populations are missing, potentially delaying payer approval of treatment. We examined whether health utility, assessed with the EuroQoL-5 3-level version (EQ-5D-3L), differed between individuals with a positive or negative amyloid beta (Aβ) biomarker in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and cognitively unimpaired (CU) participants from the Swedish BioFINDER study (n = 578). Participants with prodromal AD (Aβ-positive MCI) reported better health utility (n = 79, mean = 0.81, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.77–0.85) than Aβ-negative MCI (mean = 0.71, 95% CI 0.64–0.78), but worse than controls (Aβ-negative CU, mean = 0.87, 95% CI 0.86–0.89). Health utility in preclinical AD (Aβ-positive CU; mean = 0.86, 95% CI 0.83–0.89) was similar to controls. This relatively good health utility in prodromal AD suggests a larger value of delaying progression to dementia than previously anticipated and a great value of delaying clinical progression in preclinical AD.