Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Surgery is an effective treatment for many pharmacoresistant temporal lobe epilepsy patients, but incurs considerable cost. It is unknown whether surgery and surgical evaluation are cost-effective strategies in the United States. We aim to evaluate whether 1) surgery is cost-effective for patients who have been deemed surgical candidates when compared to continued medical management, 2) surgical evaluation is cost-effective for patients who have drug-resistant temporal epilepsy and may or may not ultimately be deemed surgical candidates
METHODS
We use a Monte Carlo simulation method to assess the cost-effectiveness of surgery and surgical evaluation over a lifetime horizon. Patients transition between two health states (‘seizure free’ and ‘having seizures’) as part of a Markov process, based on literature estimates. We adopt both healthcare and societal perspectives, including direct healthcare costs and indirect costs such as lost earnings by patients and care providers. We estimate variability of model predictions using probabilistic and deterministic sensitivity analyses.
RESULTS
1) Epilepsy surgery is cost effective in surgically eligible patients by virtue of being cost saving and more effective than medical management in the long run, with 95% of 10 000 Monte Carlo simulations favoring surgery. From a societal perspective, surgery becomes cost effective within 3 yr. At 5 yr, surgery has an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $31,600, which is significantly below the societal willingness-to-pay (∼ $100,000/quality-adjusted life years (QALY)) and comparable to hip/knee arthroplasty. 2) Surgical evaluation is cost-effective in pharmacoresistant patients even if the probability of being deemed a surgical candidate is low (5%-10%). Even if the probability of surgical eligibility is only 10%, surgical referral has an ICER of $96,000/QALY, which is below societal willingness-to-pay.
CONCLUSION
Epilepsy surgery and surgical evaluation are both cost-effective strategies in the United States. Pharmacoresistant temporal lobe epilepsy patients should be referred for surgical evaluation without hesitation on cost-effectiveness grounds.
Cost-effectiveness analysis of BNT162b2 COVID-19 booster vaccination in the United States
