Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Surgical technique process innovations are expected to generally incur no additional cost but gain better quality. Whether a mini-laparotomy surgery (MLS) in the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) is more cost effective than conventional open surgery had not been well examined. The objective of this study was to apply cost-effectiveness approaches to investigate the cost effectiveness of adopting MLS compared with open surgery 1 year following resection in CRC patients. RESEARCH DESIGN: A prospective non-randomized cohort study design. SETTING: An academic medical center. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 224 patients who received elective MLS and 339 who received conventional surgery; after propensity score matching, 212 pairs were included for analysis. INTERVENTION: None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Cost measures were hospital-index cost and outpatient and inpatient costs within 1 year after discharge. Effectiveness measures were life-years (LYs) gained and quality-adjusted life-year (QALYs) gained. STATISTICAL METHODS: We calculated incremental costs and effectiveness by differences in these values between MLS and conventional surgery using adjusted predicted estimates. RESULTS: MLS patients had lower rates of blood transfusions, less complication, and shorter post-surgical lengths of stay and more medical cost savings. One-year overall medical costs for MLS patients were TWD 748,269 (USD 24,942) per QALY gained, significant lower than for the comparison group (p-value = 0.045). CONCLUSION: Our findings supported that the less invasive surgical process through MLS not only saved medical costs, but also increased QALYs for surgical treatment in CRC patients.