Cost-effectiveness of quantitative fecal lactoferrin assay for diagnosis of symptomatic patients with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis.

Background And Aims: To assess cost-effectiveness of fecal lactoferrin (FL) as the initial diagnostic approach to symptomatic patients with ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA).

Methods: Four competing strategies [empiric metronidazole therapy (txMTZ), initial pouch endoscopy with biopsy (testBiop), initial FL assay followed by metronidazole therapy (testFL+MTZ), and initial FL assay followed by pouch endoscopy and biopsy (testFL+Biop)] were modeled in a decision tree.

Results: In the base-case, the average cost per patient was $241 for testFL+MTZ, $251 for txMTZ, $405 for testFL+Biop, and $431 for testBiop. The testBiop strategy had greater effectiveness compared with txMTZ but at an incremental cost of $158 per day. The txMTZ strategy was slightly more costly and minimally more effective than testFL+MTZ with an incremental cost effectiveness of just over $12 per day. However, the testFL+MTZ strategy was associated with a 31% absolute reduction in antibiotic exposure compared with the txMTZ strategy.

Conclusions: Compared with empiric metronidazole therapy, FL before treatment with metronidazole is less costly with less exposure to antibiotics and less need for endoscopy, with only marginal decrease in effectiveness.