Prevention of postpartum haemorrhage: cost consequences analysis of misoprostol in low-resource settings

Danielle L. Lang, Fei-Li Zhao, Jane Robertson

While inferior to oxytocin injection in both efficacy and safety, orally administered misoprostol has been included in the World Health Organization Model List of Essential Medicines for use in the prevention of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) in low-resource settings. This study evaluates the costs and health outcomes of use of oral misoprostol to prevent PPH in settings where injectable uterotonics are not available. A cost-consequences analysis was conducted from the international health system perspective, using data from a recent Cochrane systematic review and WHO's Mother-Baby Package Costing Spreadsheet in a hypothetical cohort of 1000 births in a mixed hospital (40 % births)/community setting (60 % births). Costs were estimated based on 2012 US dollars. Using oxytocin in the hospital setting and misoprostol in the community setting in a cohort of 1000 births, instead of oxytocin (hospital setting) and no treatment (community setting), 22 cases of PPH could be prevented. Six fewer women would require additional uterotonics and four fewer women a blood transfusion. An additional 130 women would experience shivering and an extra 42 women fever. Oxytocin/misoprostol was found to be cost saving (US$320) compared to oxytocin/no treatment. If misoprostol is used in both the hospital and community setting compared with no treatment (i.e. oxytocin not available in the hospital setting), 37 cases of PPH could be prevented; ten fewer women would require additional uterotonics; and six fewer women a blood transfusion. An additional 217 women would experience shivering and 70 fever. The cost savings would be US$533. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the results are sensitive to the incidence of PPH-related outcomes, drug costs and the proportion of hospital births. Our findings confirm that, even though misoprostol is not the optimum choice in the prevention of PPH, misoprostol could be an effective and cost-saving choice where oxytocin is not or cannot be used due to a lack of skilled birth attendants, inadequate transport and storage facilities or where a quality assured oxytocin product is not available. These benefits need to be weighed against the large number of additional side effects such as shivering and fever, which have been described as tolerable and of short duration.