Tag: decision analysis

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Cost Utility Analysis of the Cervical Artificial Disc vs Fusion for the Treatment of 2-Level Symptomatic Degenerative Disc Disease: 5-Year Follow-up

mobi-c

Neurosurgery 79:135–145, 2016

The cervical total disc replacement (cTDR) was developed to treat cervical degenerative disc disease while preserving motion.

OBJECTIVE: Cost-effectiveness of this intervention was established by looking at 2-year follow-up, and this update reevaluates our analysis over 5 years.

METHODS: Data were derived from a randomized trial of 330 patients. Data from the 12- Item Short Form Health Survey were transformed into utilities by using the SF-6D algorithm. Costs were calculated by extracting diagnosis-related group codes and then applying 2014 Medicare reimbursement rates. A Markov model evaluated qualityadjusted life years (QALYs) for both treatment groups. Univariate and multivariate sensitivity analyses were conducted to test the stability of the model. The model adopted both societal and health system perspectives and applied a 3% annual discount rate.

RESULTS: The cTDR costs $1687 more than anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) over 5 years. In contrast, cTDR had $34 377 less productivity loss compared with ACDF. There was a significant difference in the return-to-work rate (81.6% compared with 65.4% for cTDR and ACDF, respectively; P = .029). From a societal perspective, the incremental cost-effective ratio (ICER) for cTDR was 2$165 103 per QALY. From a health system perspective, the ICER for cTDR was $8518 per QALY. In the sensitivity analysis, the ICER for cTDR remained below the US willingness-to-pay threshold of $50 000 per QALY in all scenarios (2$225 816 per QALY to $22 071 per QALY).

CONCLUSION: This study is the first to report the comparative cost-effectiveness of cTDR vs ACDF for 2-level degenerative disc disease at 5 years. The authors conclude that, because of the negative ICER, cTDR is the dominant modality.

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Decision analysis of treatment options for vestibular schwannoma

J Neurosurg 114:400–413, 2011. (DOI: 10.3171/2010.3.JNS091802)

Widespread use of MR imaging has contributed to the more frequent diagnosis of vestibular schwannomas (VSs). These tumors represent 10% of primary adult intracranial neoplasms, and if they are symptomatic, they usually present with hearing loss and tinnitus. Currently, there are 3 treatment options for quality of life (QOL): wait and scan, microsurgery, and radiosurgery. In this paper, the authors’ purpose is to determine which treatment modality yields the highest QOL at 5- and 10-year follow-up, considering the likelihood of recurrence and various complications.

Methods. The MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane online databases were searched for English-language articles published between 1990 and June 2008, containing key words relating to VS. Data were pooled to calculate the prevalence of treatment complications, tumor recurrence, and QOL with various complications. For parameters in which incidence varied with time of follow-up, the authors used meta-regression to determine the mean prevalence rates at a specified length of follow-up. A decision-analytical model was constructed to compare 5- and 10-year outcomes for a patient with a unilateral tumor and partially intact hearing. The 3 treatment options, wait and scan, microsurgery, and radiosurgery, were compared.

Results. After screening more than 2500 abstracts, the authors ultimately included 113 articles in this analysis. Recurrence, complication rates, and onset of complication varied with the treatment chosen. The relative QOL at the 5-year follow-up was 0.898 of normal for wait and scan, 0.953 for microsurgery, and 0.97 for radiosurgery. These differences are significant (p < 0.0052). Data were too scarce at the 10-year follow-up to calculate significant differences between the microsurgery and radiosurgery strategies.

Conclusions. At 5 years, patients treated with radiosurgery have an overall better QOL than those treated with either microsurgery or those investigated further with serial imaging. The authors found that the complications associated with wait-and-scan and microsurgery treatment strategies negatively impacted patient lives more than the complications from radiosurgery. One limitation of this study is that the 10-year follow-up data were too limited to analyze, and more studies are needed to determine if the authors’ results are still consistent at 10 years.

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Choosing the best operation for chronic subdural hematoma: a decision analysis

J Neurosurg 113:615–621, 2010.DOI: 10.3171/2009.9.JNS08825

Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH), a condition much more common in the elderly, presents an increasing challenge as the population ages. Treatment strategies for CSDH include bur-hole craniostomy (BHC), twist-drill craniostomy (TDC), and craniotomy. Decision analysis was used to organize existing data and develop recommendations for effective treatment.

Methods. A Medline search was used to identify articles about treatment of CSDH. Direct assessment by health care professionals of the relative health impact of common complications and recurrences was used to generate utility values for treatment outcomes. Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analyses allowed comparisons across treatment strategies. A second simulation examined whether intraoperative irrigation or postoperative drainage affect the outcomes following BHC.

Results. On a scale from 0 to 1, the utility of BHC was found to be 0.9608, compared with 0.9202 for TDC (p = 0.001) and 0.9169 for craniotomy (p = 0.006). Sensitivity analysis confirmed the robustness of these values. Craniotomy yielded fewer recurrences, but more frequent and more serious complications than did BHC. There were no significant differences for BHC with or without irrigation or postoperative drainage.

Conclusions. Bur-hole craniostomy is the most efficient choice for surgical drainage of uncomplicated CSDH. Bur-hole craniostomy balances a low recurrence rate with a low incidence of highly morbid complications. Decision analysis provides statistical and empirical guidance in the absence of well-controlled large trials and despite a confusing range of previously reported morbidity and recurrence.

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