Heart transplantation in the Netherlands; costs, effects and scenarios

The Dutch heart transplantation programme was subjected to a prospective economic evaluation and costs and effects with or without such programme were estimated. The no-programme estimates were derived from pretransplant patient data. Future projections of both options were based on micro-stimulation using additional data on severe heart disease prevalence and on multi-organ donation. Costs per life year gained are estimated at NLG 57,650 (quality adjusted: NLG 71,900). Sensitivity analysis showed these results to depend highly on long term incidence of costs and on quality of life after transplantation.