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Updated: Oct 2, 2026
Optimization of the Retinal Vein Occlusion Mouse Model to Limit Variability
Published on: August 6, 2021
Incremental cost-effectiveness of laser therapy for visual loss secondary to branch retinal vein occlusion
Gary C Brown1, Melissa M Brown, Sanjay Sharma
1Center for Evidence-Based Health Care Economics, Flourtown, PA 19031, USA. Garyo514@aol.com
Purpose:
To ascertain the incremental cost-effectiveness of therapeutic interventions for improving visual loss associated with branch retinal vein occlusion.
Methods:
A cost-utility analysis incorporating data from the Branch Vein Occlusion Study Group was performed using patient-based preferences obtained from time tradeoff utility analysis, decision analysis with Markov modeling, and economic modeling with future value analysis. The cost-effectiveness results are expressed in dollars/QALY (dollars expended per quality-adjusted life-year) gained. This unique model takes into account the visual acuity in the better seeing eye and the recurrent risk for visual loss in the contralateral eye.
Results:
Laser therapy for macular edema secondary to branch retinal vein occlusion was associated with an incremental dollars/QALY gained of 6118 dollars (in year 2000 U.S. dollars). Two-way sensitivity analysis, varying the discount rate and the proportion of patients developing a vascular occlusion in the contralateral eye, revealed a range of dollars/QALY gained from 3370 dollars to 19,299 dollars.
Conclusions:
Laser therapy appears to be a cost-effective intervention for improving visual loss associated with macular edema secondary to branch retinal vein occlusion. Variants of the methodology employed to calculate the incremental cost-effectiveness of this intervention can be widely applied across all specialties in medicine.
