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- Talk
- 25/03/2022
- UK
Cost of Femoral Lengthening in Children: Lengthening Nails versus External Fixators
Description
The presentation by Mohamed Hafez discusses two interrelated studies focusing on economic evaluations, particularly in the context of surgical interventions for patients requiring femoral lengthening. Hafez introduces economic evaluations as crucial tools for decision-making regarding resource allocation within healthcare, outlining various types: cost minimization, cost-effectiveness, and cost-utility analysis. He emphasizes how the presented studies aim to determine whether lengthening nails, a newer, more expensive option compared to traditional external fixators, provide sufficient benefits to justify their additional costs.
The first study, a retrospective analysis of 50 patients each treated with either external fixators or lengthening nails, assesses clinical outcomes, healing indices, complications, and overall costs through micro-costing methods. Results indicate that lengthening nails offer more accurate outcomes with fewer complications but incur higher costs due to the price of the implants. Despite these higher costs, the overall financial difference was less significant than anticipated.
The second study shifts focus to quality of life assessments, contrasting patient satisfaction and utility scores between treatments using validated questionnaires. Findings demonstrate that patients receiving lengthening nails reported better quality of life outcomes compared to those treated with external fixators, reinforcing the potential cost-effectiveness of lengthening nails within NHS tertiary care settings. Hafez concludes that given the results, lengthening nails could be deemed cost-effective, echoing the overall benefits of improved outcomes and patient satisfaction.