Exome sequencing for prenatal detection of genetic abnormalities in fetal ultrasound anomalies: an economic evaluation

Introduction: In light of the prospective Prenatal Assessment of Genomes and Exomes (PAGE) study, this paper aimed to determine the additional costs of using exome sequencing (ES) alongside or in place of chromosomal microarray (CMA) in a fetus with an identified congenital anomaly.

Methods: A decision tree was populated using data from a prospective cohort of women undergoing invasive diagnostic testing. Four testing strategies were evaluated: CMA, ES, CMA followed by ES ("stepwise"); CMA and ES combined.

Results: When ES is priced at £2,100 (€2,407/$2,694), performing ES alone prenatally would cost a further £31,410 (€36,001/$40,289) per additional genetic diagnosis, whereas the stepwise would cost a further £24,657 (€28,261/$31,627) per additional genetic diagnosis. When ES is priced at £966 (€1,107/$1,239), performing ES alone prenatally would cost a further £11,532 (€13,217/$14,792) per additional genetic diagnosis, whereas the stepwise would cost a further additional £11,639 (€13,340/$14,929) per additional genetic diagnosis. The sub-group analysis suggests that performing stepwise on cases indicative of multiple anomalies at ultrasound scan (USS) compared to cases indicative of a single anomaly, is more cost-effective compared to using ES alone.

Discussion/Conclusion: Performing ES alongside CMA is more cost-effective than ES alone, which can potentially lead to improvements in pregnancy management. The direct effect of test results on pregnancy outcomes were not examined; therefore, further research is recommended to examine changes on the projected ICERs.