The cost of microwave endometrial ablation under different anaesthetic and clinical settings

Objective To compare the costs of microwave endometrial ablation under local anaesthetic and general anaesthetic in an operating theatre and to estimate the cost of performing treatment under local anaesthetic in a dedicated clinic setting.

Design The costing study was undertaken alongside a randomised controlled trial comparing the acceptability of microwave endometrial ablation using local versus general anaesthetic in a theatre setting.

Setting Department of Gynaecology, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Scotland.

Sample One hundred and twenty-seven women undergoing microwave endometrial ablation who had been randomly allocated to general or local anaesthetic.

Methods Health and non-health service resource use was recorded prospectively. Data on resource use were combined with unit costs estimated using standardised methods to determine the cost per patient for microwave endometrial ablation under local or general anaesthetic in theatre. A model was developed to estimate the health service cost of microwave endometrial ablation under local anaesthetic in a clinic setting.

Main outcome measures Health and non-health service costs.

Results There was little difference in cost when treatments were performed under local or general anaesthetic in theatre. The median health and non-health cost of microwave endometrial ablation was pound440 and pound120, respectively, under general anaesthetic and pound428 and pound125 per women under local anaesthetic. The health service cost of microwave endometrial ablation using local anaesthetic in a clinic setting was estimated to be pound432 per treatment; however, this varied from pound389 to pound491 in the sensitivity analysis.

Conclusion There are minimal cost savings to the patient or health service from using local rather than general anaesthetic for microwave endometrial ablation in a theatre setting. Cost modelling suggests that in a clinic setting microwave endometrial ablation has a similar cost to theatre based treatment once re-admissions for treatment under general anaesthetic are considered. Sensitivity analysis indicated that these findings were sensitive to assumptions in the model.