Economic Evaluation of Endoscopic vs Open Vein Harvesting

Endoscopic vein harvesting is an alternative to open vein harvesting during coronary artery bypass grafting. Although endoscopic vein harvesting includes significant clinical benefits, few long-term cost-effectiveness studies have been performed, limiting its use in the United Kingdom. In this study, we assessed the cost-effectiveness of endoscopic vein harvesting compared with open vein harvesting from the United Kingdom's National Health Service perspective.

A Markov model was developed to estimate the cost-effectiveness of endoscopic vein harvesting vs open vein harvesting by investigating the incremental lifetime costs per quality-adjusted life-year gained. A scoping literature review was conducted to inform the development of the model. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses examined the robustness of the results.

Compared with open vein harvesting, endoscopic vein harvesting leads to cost savings of £68.46 and quality-adjusted life-year gains of 0.206 per patient over a lifetime perspective. Thus, endoscopic vein harvesting is a dominant treatment option over open vein harvesting (net monetary benefit: £6248.46). In the scenario analysis, which accounted for a high-risk population with respect to leg wound infections, the net monetary benefit was £7341.47. The probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that endoscopic vein harvesting has a 62.3% probability of being cost-effective at a threshold of £30,000 per quality-adjusted life-year, highlighting uncertainties resulting from follow-up event rates.

Endoscopic vein harvesting is a cost-effective method of harvesting a saphenous vein graft. Further clinical data beyond 5 years of follow-up are required to confirm the long-term cost-effectiveness.