Cost Effectiveness of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening and Rescreening in Men in a Modern Context: Evaluation of a Hypothetical Cohort Using a Decision Analytical Model
Overview
Affiliations
Objective: To assess the cost effectiveness of different screening strategies for abdominal aortic aneurysm in men, from the perspective of a national health service.
Setting: Screening units at regional hospitals.
Participants: Hypothetical cohort of 65 year old men from the general population.
Main Outcome Measures: Costs (£ in 2010) and effect on health outcomes (quality adjusted life years (QALYs)).
Results: Screening seems to be highly cost effective compared with not screening. The model estimated a 92% probability that some form of screening would be cost effective at a threshold of £20,000 (€24,790; $31,460). If men with an aortic diameter of 25-29 mm at the initial screening were rescreened once after five years, 452 men per 100,000 initially screened would benefit from early detection, whereas lifetime rescreening every five years would detect 794 men per 100,000. We estimated the associated incremental cost effectiveness ratios for rescreening once and lifetime rescreening to be £10,013 and £29,680 per QALY, respectively. The individual probability of being the most cost effective strategy was higher for each rescreening strategy than for the screening once strategy (in view of the £20,000 threshold).
Conclusions: This study confirms the cost effectiveness of screening versus no screening and lends further support to considerations of rescreening men at least once for abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Lindholt J, Diederichsen A, Rasmussen L, Frost L, Steffensen F, Lambrechtsen J Clin Epidemiol. 2020; 12:95-103.
PMID: 32158272 PMC: 6986168. DOI: 10.2147/CLEP.S238502.
Prevalence and natural history of and risk factors for subaneurysmal aorta among 65-year-old men.
Thorbjornsen K, Svensjo S, Gidlund K, Gilgen N, Wanhainen A Ups J Med Sci. 2019; 124(3):180-186.
PMID: 31460822 PMC: 6758690. DOI: 10.1080/03009734.2019.1648611.
Sanchez Barrancos I, Guerrero Garcia F, Rico Lopez M, Fernandez Rodriguez V, Vegas Jimenez T, Alonso Roca R Aten Primaria. 2018; 50(7):430-442.
PMID: 29858122 PMC: 6837077. DOI: 10.1016/j.aprim.2018.02.011.
Current status of the treatment of infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysms.
Wang L, Prabhakar A, Kwolek C Cardiovasc Diagn Ther. 2018; 8(Suppl 1):S191-S199.
PMID: 29850431 PMC: 5949587. DOI: 10.21037/cdt.2017.10.01.
Dahl M, Frost L, Sogaard R, Klausen I, Lorentzen V, Lindholt J BMC Cardiovasc Disord. 2018; 18(1):20.
PMID: 29402233 PMC: 5800093. DOI: 10.1186/s12872-018-0758-8.