The Swiss Medical Board (SMB) has issued a cost-efficiency report on statins, as we have reported recently in cardiovascular medicine.
The Fake in short: the SMB claims statin costs per QALY to be CHF 210’000 for people with a SCORE risk of 5%. When using the SMB formula, these costs arise for a SCORE risk of 0.95% in 5 years and for a risk of 0.96% in 10 years. Cost-efficiency threshold is reached in the SMB model for a SCORE threshold of 1.8%.
What is the effect of this fake report? Many doctors in primary care are confused about the cost-efficiency of statins in primary care, may withhold necessary preventive statin therapy and miss many opportunities to save lives and prevent cardiovascular events.
What should be done? The SMB has produced willfully a faked certificate and faces persecution for criminal issues (falsification of documents). We are preparing a communication to the state attorney.