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Background: Patients with non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) that is unresponsive to bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy face a difficult choice. Immediate radical cystectomy (RC) is effective but might represent overtreatment. Continuing bladder preservation with medical therapy is an alternative, but it risks progression to muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) and a reduction in survival. Objective: To understand the trade-offs patients are willing to make in selecting treatments for BCG-unresponsive NMIBC. Design, setting, and participants: Adults with NMIBC from the UK, France, Germany, and Canada who reported current receipt of BCG, disease unresponsive to BCG, or receipt of RC in the previous 12 mo after failure of BCG were recruited to participate in an online choice experiment. Patients were asked to make repeated choices between two hypothetical medical treatments and the option to undergo immediate RC. The medical treatments required trade-offs between the time to RC, the mode and frequency of administration, the risk of experiencing serious side effects, and the risk of disease progression. Outcome measurements and statistical analysis: Error component logit models were used to calculate relative attribute importance (RAI) scores as the maximum percentage contribution to a preference and acceptable benefit-risk trade-offs. Results and limitations: Most of the 107 participants (average age 63 yr) never selected RC (89%) as their preferred option in the choice experiment. Preferences were most affected by time to RC (RAI 55%), followed by risk of progressing to MIBC (RAI 25%), medication administration (RAI 12%), and the risk of serious side effects (RAI 8%). To increase the time to RC from 1 yr to 6 yr, patients accepted a 43.8% increase in the risk of progression and a 66.1% increase in the risk of serious side effects. Conclusions: Patients with BCG-treated NMIBC valued bladder-sparing treatments and were willing to make substantial benefit-risk trade-offs to delay RC. Patient summary: Adults with bladder cancer not invading the bladder muscle completed an online experiment in which they chose between hypothetical medications and bladder removal. The results show that patients would be willing to accept different risks associated with medications to delay bladder removal. Patients considered disease progression the most important risk of medicinal treatment.

Objectives: To estimate the excess cost of stroke in Sweden and the potential costs that could be avoided by preventing first-ever strokes. Methods: We adopted the incidence approach for estimating the present value of both direct and indirect costs. Data on mortality, stroke recurrence, and inpatient care were estimated from a national register of patient data with a four-year follow-up period. To estimate costs for social services, we used survey data on living conditions before stroke onset and at three and at twenty-four months. Costs for outpatient visits, rehabilitation, drugs, and production losses due to premature death and early retirement were estimated on the basis of both published and nonpublished sources. Lifetime costs were based on life tables adjusted for excess mortality of stroke, and costs in year 4 were extrapolated to subsequent years. Results: The present value direct cost for an average stroke patient is SEK513,800 (US$56,024 or Euro60,825). The corresponding indirect cost is SEK125,110 (US$13,640 or Euro14,810). Almost 45 percent of the direct costs were attributable to social services. Women had higher costs than men, and costs for survivors increased with age due to social services. Conclusions: With an incidence of 213 first-ever strokes per 100,000 individuals, the total excess direct and indirect cost of stroke would be SEK12.3 billion (approximately US$1.3 billion or Euro1.5 billion). Hence, there are large potential cost offsets both in the health-care sector and in the social service sector if the incidence of first-ever stroke could be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]