What's the cost of healthy, functional knees for life? Priceless, you might say, especially if yours feel achy or injured. But rehabilitation after a major injury, such as an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), can be expensive, and results after surgery vary.
A recent study published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery has examined the cost-effectiveness and quality-of-life impact of surgery to repair an ACL tear in relation to the price of the procedure, versus rehabilitation without surgery. Researchers found the average lifetime societal benefit of having ACL reconstruction surgery to be $50,000 per patient - or $10.1 billion across the U.S., which reports approximately 200,000 ACL tears annually.
This price includes not only money that would have been spent on rehabilitation and future injury repair, but also comparative lost wages and disability payments after surgery versus non-surgical rehabilitation. It also considers the patient's ability to live with high function, low levels of pain and minimal risk of developing knee osteoarthritis.
From the study:
In the short to intermediate term, ACL reconstruction was both less costly (a cost reduction of $4503) and more effective (a [quality-adjusted life years - QALY] gain of 0.18) compared with rehabilitation. In the long term, the mean lifetime cost to society for a typical patient undergoing ACL reconstruction was $38,121 compared with $88,538 for rehabilitation. ACL reconstruction resulted in a mean incremental cost savings of $50,417 while providing an incremental QALY gain of 0.72 compared with rehabilitation. Effectiveness gains were driven by the higher probability of an unstable knee and associated lower utility in the rehabilitation group. Results were most sensitive to the rate of knee instability after initial rehabilitation.
Previously: Study shows men, rather than women, may be more prone to ACL injuries, Stanford study shows protein bath may rev up sluggish bone-forming cells andIron-supplement-slurping stem cells can be transplanted, then tracked to make sure they’re making new knees
Via Medical News Today
Photo by Carolyn Tiry
