Pharmacoeconomics of Parenteral Nutrition with omega-3 Fatty Acids in Hospitalized Adults

The inclusion of omega-3 fatty acids as part of parenteral nutrition is associated with clinical benefits such as a reduced likelihood of infectious complications and shorter hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) stays. As healthcare resources are limited, pharmacoeconomic analyses have been performed, typically modeling studies, using cost and outcomes data to investigate the cost-effectiveness of parenteral nutrition regimens including omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil compared with standard parenteral nutrition without such omega-3 fatty acids. This review covers pharmacoeconomic studies encompassing Italian, French, German, and UK hospitals for ICU and non-ICU hospitalized patients, and for ICU patients in China. The results show that the use of parenteral nutrition including omega-3 fatty acids more than offsets any additional acquisition costs in all national scenarios investigated to date, indicating that parenteral nutrition including omega-3 fatty acids is a clinically and economically beneficial strategy compared with standard parenteral nutrition.