Minimum Volume Standards: An Incentive To Perform More Radical Cystectomies?

Minimum volume standards (MVS) for hospitals and/or surgeons remain a subject of debate. Opponents of MVS emphasize the possible negative effects of centralization, such as an unwanted incentive to perform surgery.

To evaluate whether the introduction of MVS for radical cystectomy (RC) in the Netherlands resulted in more RCs outside guideline-recommended indications.

All RCs performed for bladder cancer in the Netherlands between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2017 were identified in the Netherlands Cancer Registry. During this period, two MVS were sequentially implemented for RC. RCs in intermediate-volume hospitals (hospitals that approximated the MVS) were compared with RCs in high-volume hospitals (hospitals exceeding the MVS by ≥5 RCs/yr) in a period before and a period after implementation of each of the two MVS.

Descriptive analyses were performed to evaluate whether hospitals performed more RCs outside the recommended indication (cT2-4a N0 M0) and whether an increase in the number of RCs towards the end of the year could be observed.

After MVS implementation, no clear shift towards disease stages outside the recommended indication for RC was observed in comparison to the period before the MVS. Results for high-volume and intermediate-volume hospitals were similar. In addition, no increase in RCs towards the end of the year was evident.

We did not find evidence indicating an unwanted incentive to perform more RCs as a result of MVS in the Netherlands. Our results further strengthen the case for MVS implementation.

We evaluated whether criteria for the minimum number of radical cystectomies (surgical removal of the bladder) that hospitals have to perform caused urologists to perform more of these operations than necessary in order to meet the minimum level. We found no evidence that minimum criteria led to such an unwanted incentive.