Cost-effectiveness of Adolescent Bariatric Surgery

The current estimates of the prevalence of adolescent morbid obesity and severe morbid obesity are about 21% and 6.6%, respectively. Obesity, if left untreated, may result in a variety of comorbid conditions and earlier mortality. Adolescent bariatric surgery is an effective, but expensive means to ameliorate these conditions and the risk of earlier mortality. We aimed to develop a model to evaluate the long-term cost-effectiveness of bariatric surgery.

All adolescents who participated in our bariatric surgery multidisciplinary program from January 2010 to December 2013 were included if they had at least 12 months follow-up after their surgery. Intervention costs included all operative as well as preoperative and 12-month postoperative care. We used the US Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS) to estimate the association between reductions in BMI after surgery with future savings from reduced medical care use and with increased health-related quality of life (HRQL). We linked BMI with life expectancy using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A Markov cohort model was then used to project health care-related costs (2013 US$), and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) over time starting at age 18. Incremental costs per QALY of surgery vs. no surgery from a health care system perspective were then estimated.

At one year follow-up, mean weight loss was 37.5 (std. = 13.5) kg and the corresponding BMI was 35.4 (reduction of 13.2, p<0.01). Mean total intervention costs/person were $25,854 (std. = 2,044). A unit change in BMI was associated with future medical care savings of $157/year (p<0.01) and with an increase in HRQL of 0.004 (p<0.01) and life expectancy. At a threshold of a 100,000/QALY, bariatric surgery was not cost-effective in the first three years, but became cost-effective after that ($80,065/QALY in year four and $36,570/QALY in year seven).

Our results suggest that bariatric surgery among adolescents may be cost-effective when evaluated over a long period of time. Future studies on a large scale are needed to show a continued improvement in QALYs and to evaluate earlier cost-effectiveness of the procedure.